The Man with the Iron Hand

by John Carl Parish

THE COMING OF THE STRANGERS

It was many days later, and the quiet and beauty of June had come upon the Mississippi Valley. From in front of the Peoria lodges on the banks of the Iowa River, a slender trail slipped off across the prairies through two leagues of sunshine over a country fair to see, and came at length to the west bank of the Mississippi. But on this summer day no Indian traveled the pathway that led from the village. There was no one in the streets of the Indian town, and no movement to be seen save the slow rising of smoke from the tops of the three hundred lodges which dotted the hill like so many long arbors, with rounded roofs made waterproof by layers of plaited rush mats. But from the lodges came the murmur of voices, for inside the windowless walls the Indians of the Peoria tribe were gathered.

Down the center line within each lodge four or five fires were burning, and beside each fire two families made their home. Indian women squatted by the smouldering embers, or pounded corn into meal in stone bowls; while here and there on rush mats or on the dirt floor sat the men with tattooed and sinewy bodies, smoking long-stemmed pipes or mending bows. Against the walls brown papooses, on end in their cases, blinked at the light from doorway and fires or gazed stolidly and silently at nothing. Life among the lodges, except in time of war, was uneventful. Nor was there on this day in late June any reason to look for events other than those which had fallen upon the tribe for generations.

Then of a sudden the village was startled by a shout. It was not that peculiar cry of war which sometimes echoed along the valley, nor yet the cry of returning hunters or warriors. It had an odd new note in it that halted the busy work of the Indian women and woke to activity the dreaming braves. Pipes were laid aside, stones with which the squaws were grinding corn fell quiet into the bowls, and papooses were forgotten as the villagers swarmed out of the lodges into the sunlight.

Strange was the sight which met their curious gaze. There in the pathway that came over from the Mississippi were two men. The Peorias had seen no Indians like these. Although it was the month of June the strangers were covered from head to foot with garments of cloth. One, a man yet in his twenties, was dressed in a coat and heavy breeches; the other, a quietfaced man somewhat older than his companion, wore a long black robe, gathered about his waist by a cord and reaching to his feet. Swung from this cord was a string of large beads from which hung a cross.

Unannounced these strange beings had appeared in the pathway before the village almost as if dropped by some spirit from the sky. No paint was on their pale faces, no feathers in their hair. They carried no weapons and displayed neither the pipe of war with its red paint and feathers nor the pipe of peace that told of the coming of friends. Yet there were those among the Indian villagers who doubtless knew whence the strangers came. Perhaps among them were some of the Illinois warriors who, six years before, had made a visit to a group of cabins many leagues to the north, on the shore of Lake Superior, and who had there seen the energetic fur traders, with their blanket coats and stout breeches, and the Jesuit priests who, dressed like this man in black gown and hood, had pushed their way into the villages all about the Great Lakes. Perhaps in the journeys which the Peorias sometimes made to the village of their Kaskaskia brothers over on the Illinois River, they had heard of the men with white faces who lived near Green Bay and at the Straits of Mackinac.

The word quickly passed among the men of the Peoria village that these two strangers were of the great French nation from over the sea. Moreover, since it was customary for the Indian to be hospitable to peaceable visitors, these two men who had appeared so unexpectedly in the pathway must be fitly welcomed. Four Indians—old men with authority in the tribe—stepped out from the crowd and advanced down the path. They walked slowly, two of them holding above their heads in the glowing sunlight the calumets or pipes of peace decorated with feathers and finely ornamented. Without a word they drew near the strangers, holding their pipes to the sky as if offering them to the sun to smoke. Finally they stopped and gazed attentively, yet courteously, upon the white men.

Then spoke up the man in the black gown. “Who are you?” he said in a broken Algonquian tongue.

“We are Illinois,” the old men answered. There was pride in their tones, for the name Illinois means “the men”—as if no other Indians were so worthy to be called men. Then they gave the white men the pipes of peace to smoke and invited them to visit the lodges.

Together the Indians and their guests walked up the path to the village. At the door of one of the lodges was an old man who stood naked and erect, with hands extended to the sun. Toward this lodge the strangers made their way; and as they drew near, the old man spoke: