When the tree flowered

by John G. Neihardt

“Next day High Horse was feeling sicker than ever, and even I was feeling a little sick. But I said, ‘Brother, we nearly got her that time, and if you are man enough and your knife does not slip, next time we will get her, for I will think up a better plan.’ And High Horse groaned and said, ‘Maybe they will kill me next time, but I am going to die anyway if I don’t get Good Plume, and I am man enough to fight the whole Shyela village if they catch me.’ ‘Then quit groaning,’ I said, ‘and have a strong heart, for I have a plan already; only we must wait until the people up there are not excited any more.’

“So we counted ten days and waited; and while we waited we talked about my plan. Maybe I got it from Charger’s story about the wild young man who liked tobacco so much he could never get enough of it; but it was different too.

“So this is the way it was. When we had counted ten days, we rode far around the Shyela village and came to the creek above it when the sun was low. Then High Horse stripped naked and I began painting him with mud all over. When I was through, he was all crooked stripes and spots, and he looked like some animal nobody ever saw. When he saw himself in the water he said, ‘I look so terrible that I scare myself.’ And I said, ‘You look so terrible you scare even me a little, and I made you. If you get caught, people will think you are some bad spirit and they will all run away; so you must not be afraid of anything; and don’t let your knife slip this time.’

“When the night was getting old and no dogs barked, we crawled into the Shyela village leading the horse. We did this so slowly that no dog noticed us. There was snoring in the girl’s tepee. So High Horse pulled a stake. The snoring went on. He pulled another stake. The snoring still went on. Then he crawled in. Pretty soon a thong popped and I heard the old woman say, ‘Wake up! Wake up! There is somebody in this tepee!’ And the old man said, ‘Of course there is somebody in this tepee. I am in this tepee. Go to sleep and don’t bother me.’ Pretty soon there was snoring again.

“I listened hard for another pop, but there was only snoring—more than before, like two men snoring back and forth at each other. And this is how it was in there.

“When the old woman and old man talked, High Horse lay flat on his belly and stopped breathing for a while. But he was very tired and very weak because he had not slept or eaten much for a long time, he was so sick about the girl. So all at once he was snoring as hard as the old man was.

“I waited and waited. The morning star came up. I waited and waited. There was a thin streak of day. I could not call to High Horse, so I waited. The hills were beginning to stare. Then I got out of there with the horse and hid up the creek in the brush where I had tied Whirlwind.

“Pretty soon all at once there was a big noise—screaming and yelling and barking down there in the village. It was even worse than the other time. Then I could hear somebody running hard, and it was High Horse, coming like an antelope. He was coming up the creek towards me, and he surely looked terrible in the daylight. All at once he dodged into a big hollow tree by the creek, and I could not go to him or call to him because I could hear people coming. It was a party of men with axes and knives and spears and guns. They were looking here and looking there and being very careful because of the terrible thing they had seen running. They stopped close to the hollow tree, and when they could not see any tracks, one said, ‘It was a bad spirit that has gone back into the water.’ Then they went away, for I think they were glad not to catch what they had chased.

“This is how it happened in the tepee. When the day began to come in through the flap, the girl awoke and looked around. The first thing she saw was that terrible animal sleeping there beside her bed. And that was when the big noise began and High Horse started running.

“I was lying there in the brush now listening, and afterwhile the big noise stopped and I could hear tepee poles coming down. The people were moving camp because of the bad spirit in that place; and when I had waited some more, there was no sound to hear at all, and I knew the people were all gone. So I went to High Horse; and when he came out of his tree he looked so sick and sad and terrible all at once that I had to laugh. Anyway, they had not caught us, and that was good. But High Horse did not laugh any; he just groaned. So I quit laughing, and said, ‘Have a strong heart, brother-friend, and when I have washed the mud off, I will think up a better plan.’ So we went into the water and I washed him. And when he was dressed, he said, ‘I know now I can never have Good Plume, so I shall have to die. I will go on the war-path alone, and somebody will kill me.’ And I said, ‘I am your brother-friend and you will not go to war alone, because I am going with you. We shall see if the old man laughs when we get back with a hundred ponies and I do not know how many scalps.’”