The Lonesome Trail

by John G. Neihardt

And though the people did not hear nor see him go, they knew that he was gone. That night only the children slept.

When Shonga Saba reached his tepee, he did that which was the custom. He cut his hair, he took off his garments, he smeared his forehead with mud. Of tears and dust he made the mud. Upon his forehead he put the mark of his shame.

From the peak of his tepee, where the smoke comes out, he tore the rawhide flap. It was blackened with the smoke of many fires. About his shoulders he bound it; and it was the garment of his shame.

And then he went forth from the camp. He pitched a lonesome tepee without the circle of his people; for thus he should live four summers and four winters. It was the custom.

And in the first light his woman came to him with water and cooked meat. Also, she brought moaning. Shonga Saba spoke no word nor looked up. The mud of tears and dust was upon his forehead, and the blackened garment of shame was upon his shoulders. There was a lump in his throat; but the water did not wash it away. There was an emptiness in him; but the meat did not fill it. And when he cut the meat, which was well cooked, the man groaned, for blood ran forth and made the food look like a wound.

Again the tribe took up the trail; they wanted to find the bison, for there was little meat. And the man followed at the distance of an arrow’s flight behind his moving people, for such was the custom. But no thunder of bison came from the brown valleys where the trail went; neither was there any dust cloud of pawing hoofs. And the old women remembered old-time famines, and their hands trembled as they pitched the tepees in the dusk that ended the day’s toil.

And in the mornings the old men gazed into the shining distance, looking from under their hands with eyes that glared as in battle. And all day, sweating and toiling on the trail, the people ate the distance with hungry eyes.

Round bellies flattened; for the evil days had come.

And the man who had killed saw all this. He too walked with hunger and something bigger than the food-wish. Also lonesomeness was ever by his side. In the nights he felt the mark upon his forehead like the sting of an angry knife; and the smoke-flap was as a fire upon his shoulders.

And one night he said: “I have brought these days of toiling without food upon my people. It was for this that my mother groaned at my coming. I should have been the food of wolves on that day when my eyes were not yet open. I will go away, for evil walks with me, and my feet scatter trouble in the trail. My woman is as one who has no man, and my children are as a stranger’s children. I will walk far and seek peace among other peoples, among strange hills and valleys.”