The Lonesome Trail

by John G. Neihardt

Having cautiously approached a fire, Little Wolf sat upon the ground with his knees huddled up to his chin, and watched the deft hands of the women tending the baking of the squaw corn cakes and the yellow watuh (pumpkin) in the embers.

The old women, their backs bent with their loads, carried bundles of faggots from a thicket near by and placed them upon the fires, that flared up with a sound like the wind’s, making a small circular day amid the gathering shadows. The air was pleasant with the scent of boiling kettles, some filled with the meat of the tae or the tachuga (bison and antelope); some ebullient with the savoury zhew munka, the tea of the prairie. And as Little Wolf sat and looked upon the suggestive scene, a great wave of sympathetic kindness passed through his small body.

And especially did the wolfishness of his little heart melt into an indefinite feeling of love for humanity as his eyes followed the form of the maiden Hinnagi as she bustled with her mother about the kettles. Already in his childish mind he was wielding the stone axe with mighty force in some mysterious battle among the hills; and it was all for her. His eyes grew big with the dream he was dreaming. He stared into the fire as he thought the thoughts of ambitious youth.

The flame fell and crept into the embers. Then reality came back as the shadows came. Something of the wonted wolfishness tugged at his heart as he thought of what the braves had said. He could never be a strong brave! With an awful bitterness this thought grew upon him, and even a full stomach could not quite ease the pang.

After the evening meal the war drums were brought into the open space about which the tepees were built. For upon the morrow the entire band of the tribe’s warriors would go out against their enemies, the Sioux, and to-night they would dance the war dance that their courage might not fail.

The drums were placed in a small circle; before each an old man, who had seen many battles ere the eagle glance faded from his eye, sat cross-legged, holding a drumstick in either hand. About these the braves gathered in a larger circle. The yellow and red light of the boisterous camp fires made more terrible their faces fierce with the war paint.

In another circle at some distance from that of the braves, awaited the women, dressed in their brightest garments of dyed buckskin. At a signal from the head chief of the tribe, the snarling thunder of the war drums began. The two motionless circles suddenly became two rings of gyrating colour. The beaded moccasins twinkled like a chain of satellites swinging about the faggot fire for a sun. The shout of the braves arose above the cadence of the drum beats, and the monotonous song of the women grew like a night wind in a lonesome valley.

Tum-tum-um-um, tum-tum-um-um, went the drums, ever faster, ever louder, inciting the dancers to delirious fury. The neglected fires dwindled into embers. The shout of the braves and the droning of the women ceased. Darkness fell upon the circles. The dancers moved swiftly through the dusk like ghosts in a midnight orgy. There was no sound save the snarling beat of the drums and the shuffle of wild feet.

Then the moon, big-eyed with wonder, arose above the hills, pouring a weird light upon the dance. Little Wolf, who had been huddling closely against a tepee with an unintelligible fear, now felt the delirium of the dance for the first time. He leaped to his feet with a shout that echoed strange and hoarse from the hills! The whole village, as if awakened from the spell, caught up the cry and sent it trembling up the gulches!