“I thought this was some woman’s trick. I pushed her from me. I said: ‘I am hungry; you are my squaw; cook my food!’ And she brought wood and water; she made a fire; she worked for me. All the while her eyes were soft, and often she touched me with finger tips that burned as of old with soft fires. I could not understand. When I was kind, then was she not kind. And now, with the blue marks of my angry fingers at her throat, she worked for me, her eyes were soft for me, her finger-tips were warm for me. I cannot understand.”
Yellow Fox took the pipe from my hands and smoked long in silence. He sighed deeply, breathing in great breaths of smoke. At length, growing impatient, I ventured a question: “And what became of Mignon?”
He laid down his pipe and said in a low voice: “The woman who wailed in the lodge had not forgotten!
“The plums ripened,” he continued, “and the flowers that bloomed upon our summer trail were heavy with seed. The hills grew brown. A greyness like smoke was in all the air. The grapes hung thick and purple.
“And it happened one night when the first small pinch of frost was in the air, that Mignon would sing soft baby songs, such as the mothers of her people sang, she said. Oh, such soft, low songs! I hear them yet. A kindness was in her face, like that in the face of a young mother. I saw it by the light of the wood fire that held the frost away. And when she had sung much, as to a child, she put her hands upon my shoulders and she said a strange thing. This is what she said, I remember: ‘Sometime, Yellow Fox, I will sing to your zhinga zhinga [baby]; will you be glad?’
“And I wondered much, for her eyes were wet when she said it.
“And that night she fell to sleep with her soft hands clutching my arm. And something made me wish to sing. I watched her sleeping, and there was an ache in my breast when I remembered the feel of my angry fingers at her throat. And then I slept.
“But in that time when the night is deepest and sleep is like a weight upon the eyes, a sharp cry woke me. I leaped up. The fire was almost dead. I heard feet flying through the dead leaves into the darkness. One hand felt warm and wet; I raised it to my nose and it was blood. And then I heard a gasping for breath and a sound of gurgling. I put my hand upon the breast of Mignon—and it was wet with blood!
“I scraped the embers together and made a little flame. I looked upon her face and it had the look of death. Eyes that ached she turned upon me. I stopped the blood with torn garments. I called her soft names and she clutched my fingers. Then she was very quiet. I could hear leaves dropping out in the night.
“And when the face of the night turned grey, she opened her eyes that were hot and dry. With very weak hands she drew my ear close to her lips. She breathed a little broken piece of song—a baby song—a song of the mothers of her people. And when I looked upon her again, her face was pinched, her eyes stared.”