“Good! And did you kill him?”
“My brother is like all his white brothers, who leap at things. Never will they wait. If I said yes or no, then would I have no story.”
“Then give me a puff at the pipe, Half-a-Day, and I will be patient.”
Half-a-Day gave me the pipe and began, with eyes staring through the fire and far away down the long trail that leads back to youth.
“Many winters and summers ago I was a young man; now I am slow when I walk and my head looks much to the ground. But I remember, and now again I am young for a little while. I can smell the fires in the evening that roared upward then, even tho’ they are cold these many moons and their ashes scattered. And I can see the face of Paezha [flower], the one daughter of Douba Mona, for my eyes are young too. And Douba Mona was a great man.
“Paezha was not so big as the other squaws, and could never be so big, because she was not made for building tepees and bringing wood and water. She was little and thin and good to see like some of your white sisters, and there was no face in the village of my people like her face. Her feet touched the ground with a light touch like a little wind from the south; her body bent easily like a willow; I think her eyes were like stars.”
I smiled here, because the simile has become so trite among us white lovers. But Half-a-Day saw me not; he looked down the long trail that leads back to youth, leading through and beyond the fire.
“And I looked upon her face until I could see nothing else—not the sunrise nor the sunset nor the moon and stars. Her face became a medicine face to me; because I was a young man and it was good to see her. And also, I was a poor young man; my father had few ponies, and her father had as many as one could see with a big look.
“But I was strong and proud and in the long nights I dreamed of Paezha, till one day I said: ‘I will have her and I will fight all the braves in all the villages before I will give her up. Then afterwards I will get many ponies like her father.’