Tales of a Vanishing River

by Earl H. Reed

He rejoiced when the small black eyes of a papoose blinked at him when he visited the new wigwam one afternoon during the following summer. He spent much time with the little wild thing on his knee when she was old enough to be handled by anybody but her mother. He would sit for hours, gently swinging the birch bark cradle that hung from a low bough near the bank, for he was no longer able to hunt or fish, and took no part in the activities of the men of the village. Little Turtle’s prowess amply supplied both wigwams with food and raiment, and there was no need for further exertion.

White Wolf had apparently recovered from his infatuation. He occasionally came up the river, but his connection with the affairs of the community, whose little habitations were widely scattered through the woods beyond the bayou, was considered a thing of the past.

Little Turtle was highly esteemed by the men of his village, and two years after his marriage he was made its chief.

The following spring delegations from the various villages along the river departed for a general powwow of the tribe, near the mouth of the St. Joseph, in the country of the dunes, about eighty miles away. Little Turtle and White Wolf went with them. Time had nurtured the demon in the heart of the baffled suitor, but there were no indications of enmity during the trip. The party broke up on its way home and took different trails. Little Turtle never returned.

Nebowie pined in anguish for the home coming, and White Wolf waited for her sorrow to pass. She spent months of misery, and finally carried her aching heart to the “Black Robe,” who ministered to the spiritual needs of her people, after the formula of his sect, in the little mission house up the river. He was a kindly counselor and listened with sympathy to her story.

He belonged to that hardy and zealous band of ecclesiastics who had come into the land of another race to build new altars, and to teach what they believed to be the ways to redemption. He told Nebowie to take her sorrow to the white man’s deity and gave her a small silver crucifix as a token that would bring divine consolation and peace. Forms of penance and supplication were prescribed, and she was sent away with the blessing of the devout priest.

Nebowie carried her cross and, during the still hours in the little wigwam, she held it to her anguished breast. The months brought no surcease. In the quiet ministry of the woods there crept into her heart a belief that the magic of the Black Robe’s God was futile.

The inevitable atavism came and she departed into the silences. For a long time her whereabouts were unknown. During the bitter months her intuitive mind worked out the problem. Something that she found in the wilderness had solved the mystery of her loved one’s disappearance, and, when she returned, she hammered her silver crucifix into an arrow head, bound it with deer sinew to the hickory shaft of the arrow with which Little Turtle had killed the bald eagle, and meditated upon the hour of her revenge. White Wolf was doomed, and his executioner patiently bided the time for action.

He renewed his visits and condoled with the sad old man, but made no progress with Nebowie, although she sometimes seemed to encourage his advances.

One evening in the early fall he returned from a hunting trip over the marshes. He followed one of the small trails that skirted the woods near his village. A shadowy form moved silently among the trees. There was a low whir, and something sped through the dusk.