The Flute of the Gods

by Marah Ellis Ryan

Yahn pressed his hand furtively and smiled on him as he left her, and then entered her own dwelling and sprinkled prayer meal to the spirits who carry messages to the gods.

Then she sent a child for Ka-yemo and gave the child some dried peaches that he be content to stay with his fellows in the sunshine and eat them.

Ka-yemo entered her dwelling for the first time in many moons and clasped her close, and then seated himself in the farthest corner from the Apache god pictures while Yahn Tsyn-deh talked.

Her voice was low, and often she went to the opening to see that no one listened, and Ka-yemo was 286 wonder-struck at the greatness of the thing she whispered.

“You have won scalps in this battle––you have led the men in the scalp dance, and the people know you are strong. If Tahn-té went out of the world now, at this time, you would be strongest. This is the time he must go!”

“But if the vengeance of the Castilians came heavy?”

“It will not come heavy. Don Ruy has forbidden Gonzalvo even to speak words against Tahn-té to the padre. So it is that he would be angry if Gonzalvo sent arrows into the Po-Ahtun-ho. You must not do it, for his magic power might come heavy on your head. If you fear to destroy the Castilian capitan you are foolish in your thought––for it need never be known. Look!––here are arrows of the Navahu, from the place of battle I gathered many, these are the arrows for the work. Let Gonzalvo risk the magic of Tahn-té, and the magic of the witch maid, and destroy them, then you must alone, trail the Castilian, that he comes not back alive to tell how it was done! The Navahu arrows will take the blame from your head––it will be plain that some Navahu men stayed to take pay for their dead! So it will be, and you, Ka-yemo, will stand high, and your clan will be proud that no man stands more high. And I––Yahn––will be with you each step of the life trail––and each step we dare look down on all others and be proud. The songs you sing can be proud songs!”

The blood of Ka-yemo jumped in his veins at that picture of victory as drawn by Yahn Tsyn-deh. Now, since she had asked him to destroy Juan Gonzalvo 287 was he at last content in the thought that her love had not wandered from him, Ka-yemo! Even in the days of silence and anger had he held her spirit;––and to do that with a woman is proof that a man is strong! It made him feel there in the dwelling of Yahn the Apache, that he could do battle in the open for her with the Castilian capitan if need be and have no fear;––how much more then would he dare do the work to be done in secret on the heights!

Thus did Yahn Tsyn-deh spin her web that Tahn-té and the maid of the forest be caught in its meshes, and it seemed good to her that the men of iron be killed when chance offered;––especially must the Castilian capitan not be let live to tell the clan of Tahn-té aught of how the plan was made;––and above all had she spoken truth to the Woman of the Twilight by the path to the well:––her life was as the life of Ka-yemo;––if the Castilian escaped and dared claim the price she offered––!

At that thought Yahn felt for the knife in her girdle, and had joy that the edge of it was keen as the steel of the Castilians, and her smile was a threat as she almost felt her hand thrust and twist it in the flesh of the man of iron who had dared think himself the equal of Ka-yemo!