Beyond the sunset

by Arthur D. Howden Smith

So sure was he that he never mentioned it thereafterward. It had been a gift from Hawenneyu, a recognition of human endurance and loyalty. Very well, then, he took what Hawenneyu gave, offered thanks and went his way. Why talk of the obvious? Anyone, so Tawannears reasoned in his blend of Christian philosophy and pagan faith, who strove hard enough could do what he had done. It had been done before, he believed. He did not even question the failure of Jouskeha—or Wiki—to seal his Lost Soul in the pumpkin-shell in which she had first appeared, and deliver her to him so. The gods, no more than men, must do a thing in the same way each time they undertook it. They had acted toward him as they saw fit. He refused to quibble over details. He was satisfied.

I have said that without Kachina we should have perished. Mayhap I exaggerate, but nevertheless 'tis true that she was the means of guiding us from the cliff-top above the grave of Homolobi down to the valley-floor, which we had need to pass to gain the Eastern vents. 'Twas she who skirted the ragged mound the rock-slide had formed, and solved the first of our difficulties by retrieving two bows and a quiver of arrows which certain of the Awataba had cast aside in flight. As weapons these were not much, crudely made, lightly strung, with flint-tipped arrows none too straight or dependable in flight; but they were better than nothing.

Kachina, too, collected corn and vegetables from the standing fields and gardens on the far side of the river, which had been undamaged by the catastrophe, and with these she cooked us tasty stews that helped us to fight down the pangs of hunger we experienced as meat-eaters. And 'twas she who knocked over a turkey of one of the village flocks and afforded us thus a more substantial meal the next evening. And she knew the best passes and ravines leading from the valley, and saved us weeks of wandering, and very likely, death from starvation or at the hand of some hostile tribe, when we resumed our journey to the East.

She was a maid as quick in wit and devotion as in temper, scornful of Peter's bulk whilst she respected his strength, affecting for me an amused toleration as of one incomparably aged, an incumbrance to be admitted for sake of Tawannears. I think at first she was attracted by the Seneca because of the novelty of his case, the strange part it gave her to play, the whimsical sensation of being one reborn again, an accepted intimate and favorite of the gods. But there can be no question she grew to love him with devotion akin to his own. He was a man amongst millions, ay, in the very words she used, a Man!

Both Peter and I, whom she plagued and teased like the child she was, came to love her as a sister and a true comrade, and because of her mingling of Indian unconsciousness and stoicism and white woman's coy mannerisms. 'Twas Peter, for instance, insisted upon taking from her the ridiculous costume of turkey feathers, which was all she had to wear. For herself, she gave it not a second's thought. I daresay it was fairly warm if unsubstantial, and she had as little false modesty as might be expected in one who was convinced of her semi-divinity. Peter fashioned for her instead a neat costume of moccasins, breeches and coat, which he contrived from his own raiment, going afterward almost as naked as the Awataba until good fortune threw in our way the chance to replenish ourselves. But I am again galloping in advance of my story, an ill trick, and to be attributed to the garrulity of old memories stirred afresh.

With weapons and food for the time being, our next concern was as to shelter for the Winter, and on this point we were all agreed: we desired to get as far as possible from this valley of death before the cold weather and the terrible snows prevented traveling, and inasmuch as Tawannears' search was ended there was no question but that we should go east. Had we been by ourselves we three would have elected to follow the stream which flowed through the plantations of what had been Homolobi—and we should have been led hundreds of miles to the southward. It was by Kachina's advice that we chose a ravine which carried us due east into a more favorable country, where game was abundant.

We had feared the attentions of the remnants of the Awataba, but if any were left they gave us a wide berth, nor did we see signs of other savages, until we came to a considerable river some four days' journey from the edge of the rock desert, where we were attacked by a small band of stalwart warriors, whom Kachina called Navahu. They came at us boldly, seeing how few we were, and we pretended to flee behind a thicket; but as they approached us there we charged upon them with heavy clubs of wood that Peter had cut, and at the sight of our white, bearded faces they lost all their ardor and tried to escape, crying that we were Naakai, by which, it seems, they meant Spaniards. We overtook and plundered several of them, besides raiding their camp on the river-bank, and so became possessed of some handsomely woven robes or blankets, which Kachina assured us were highly prized by all the tribes in these regions.

Hitherto Peter and I had been obliged to content ourselves with clubs to supplement our knives and tomahawks, it being manifestly the wisest policy to award our two bows to Tawannears and Kachina, who were more expert archers than we. Now we acquired two more bows and nearly two quivers full of arrows, and plucking up our courage, deemed ourselves equipped to encounter any resistance short of musketry. We swam the river without difficulty, and continued east, being halted presently by a barrier of foothills beyond a smaller stream. Long since we had passed the confines of Kachina's narrow geographical knowledge, and after discussing the situation we decided to follow this stream north.

When it turned abruptly west three days afterward we were crestfallen, but we agreed to keep to its banks for one day more; and our perseverance was rewarded, for we discovered that it flowed into a larger river, apparently the one we had first crossed, which seemed to come down from the northeast. 'Twas in this direction we felt vaguely that we should aim, and we made the best progress the broken ground afforded. Several days' rough traveling brought us to a third stream, which joined our river from the east. Ahead loomed range after range of rocky peaks; southeast the prospect* was also forbidding. We made the only decision possible, and headed east up the course of this new river. Of course, it might have carried us anywhere, as in this land the streams seemed to be coming from and flowing toward all directions; but it was our good fortune that its head waters were high on the western slopes of the Sky Mountains, and we were able to Winter in a glorious valley such as had been our home the year previous.

* Ormerod's course grows increasingly difficult to trace, but I hazard a guess he came out of some point in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, crossed the Grand and followed that river to the Gunnison.—A.D.H S.