The Lonesome Trail

by John G. Neihardt

And in the morning he told the dream to his father, who frowned; to his mother—and she wept. And they said: “This is not a warrior’s dream, nor is it the dream of a Holy Man; nor yet is it the vision of a mighty bison hunter. Some strange new trail this boy shall follow—a cloudy, cloudy trail! Yet let him go a third time to the hill—may not the true dream linger?”

And the boy went up again; his step was light; his heart sang wildly in his breast. For once again he wished to see the Woman of the Moon.

But no dream came. And in the morning the pinch of grief was upon his face and he shook his fists at the laughing Day. Then did he and a great Ache walk down the hill together. All things were little and nothing good to see. And in among his people he went, staring with eyes that burned as with a fever, and lo! he was a stranger walking there! Only the Dream walked with him.

And the sunlight burned the blue, much-beaded tepee of the sky, and left it black; and as it burned and blackened, burned and blackened, he who dreamed the strange dream found no pleasure in the ways of men. Only in gazing upon the round moon did he find pleasure. And when even this was hidden from him for many nights and days he went about with drooping head, and an ache was in his eyes.

And in these days he made wild songs; for never do the happy ones make songs—they only sing them. Songs that none had heard he made. Not such as toilers make to shout about the camp fires when the meat goes round. Yet was the thick, hot dust of weary trails blown through them, and cries of dying warriors, and shrieks of widowed women, and whimpering of sick zhinga zhingas; and also there was in them the pang of big man-hearts, the ache of toiling women’s backs, the hunger, the thirst, the wish to live, the fear to die!

So the people said: “Who is this nu zhinga who sings of trails he never followed, of battles he never fought? No father is he—and yet he sings as one who has lost a son! Of the pain of love he sings—yet never has he looked upon a girl!”

And it was the way of the boy to answer: “I seek what I do not find, and so I sing!”

And the nights and days made summers and winters, and thus it was with the Singer of the Ache. He grew tall even to the height of a man—yet was he no man. For little did he care to hunt, and the love of battles was not his. Nor his the laughter of the feast fires. Nor did he look upon the face of any maiden with soft eyes.

And the father and mother, who felt the first frosts upon their heads, said: “Our son is now a man; should he not build a lodge and fill it with a woman? Should we not hear the laughter of zhinga zhingas once again before we take the black trail together?”