For a while, Eagle Voice seemed to have forgotten me, gazing over my head with a faraway illuminated look. Then he spoke slowly in a low voice as though talking to himself:
“Tashina Wanblee [Her Eagle Robe]. She was a pretty little girl. I liked to play over there; and she said I was the best horse she ever had.”
Then, becoming aware of me again, he continued, chuckling: “But one day I got tired of playing horse; so I stood up on my hind legs and I said: ‘When I get just a little bigger I am going to marry you, and you are going to be my woman.’ And she stuck her tongue out at me and said: ‘You are only a shonka-’kan. Go and eat grass!’”
The old man’s laughter trailed off into silence and the boy look went away.
II
When the Hundred Died
“—And what became of the little girl, Grandfather?” I asked at length. “Did you marry her when you got a little bigger?”
For some time the old man had seemed unconscious of me as he sat there studying the ground, blowing softly now and then upon an eagle-bone whistle suspended from his neck by a rawhide thong. He fixed a squinting, quizzical gaze upon me and said: “That is a story, Grandson, and so is this whistle. I can hear it crying across many snows and grasses. Why are Wasichus always in a hurry? It is not good.”
Then he lapsed into meditation as before, blowing softly now and then upon the wing-bone, polished with the handling of many years.
“Sheetsha!” he said at last in an explosive whisper.
“What is bad, Grandfather?” I asked.