The Flute of the Gods

by Marah Ellis Ryan

But as the sun rose Tahn-té bathed in the running water of the river, and his prayer was of joy:––for he was to go!

In joy, and with the light of exaltation in his face he said farewell to boy thoughts, and walked lightly over the highlands and the valleys to Ua-lano, and 43 thence followed the adventurers to Ci-cu-yé and bent the knee to Father Luis, and kissed the cross, and let water be sprinkled over him, and did all the things shown him with so glad a heart that the devoted priest gave praise for such a convert from the pagan people. So pleased was he with the eagerness of Tahn-té to learn, that he made him his own assistant at the ceremonies of the Holy Faith.

And after each one, the boy washed his hands in running water, and scattered prayer meal to the gods of the elements, and to the Sun Father God, and knew that in Provi-whah his mother was praying also that he be not harmed by the god of the gold hunters––and that he come back strong with the white man’s magic.

The boy Ka-yemo of the Tain-tsain clan was also sent––but neither boy was told of the quest of the other. The old men decided it was better so. Without pay they went with the Spanish adventurers, one serving the men of arms and learning the ways of the strange animals, and the other serving the priests and learning the symbols of the strangers’ creed of the one goddess, and two gods, and many Go-h[=e]-yahs, called saints by the men of the iron clothes.

They both saw many strange things in Ci-cu-yé, and they saw the strange Indian slave, whom the old men of Ci-cu-yé instructed to lead the men of iron from their land with the romance of Quivera. And the slave did it, and told the strangers of the mythic land of gold and gems, and lost his life in the end by doing so, but the life of the romance was more enduring than any other thing, and the spirit of that treasure search still broods over the deserts and the mountains of that land.

But the stay of Ka-yemo was not even the length of 44 the first winter with the strangers. For in Tiguex where the great captain (Coronado) wintered, and made his comfort by turning the natives out of their houses, there was a season of grievous strife ere the Spring came, and the two boys of Te-hua saw things unspeakable as two hundred Indians of the valley, captured under truce, were burned at the stake by the soldiers of the cross.

One of the reasons for the crusade to the north as written in the chronicles of Christian Mexico was to save the souls of the heathen for the one god,––and his advocates were sending the said souls for judgement as quickly as might be!

Tahn-té stood, pale and tense in the house where the chapel of Fray Juan Padilla had been established,––once it had been the house of the governor of the village who might even now be among the victims of the broken trust.

On the altar was a crucifix in gold on ebony, and the eyes of the boy were not kindly as he regarded it.

“They lie when they say you are a god of peace like our god Po-se-yemo,” he said. “They lie when they say you are the god of the red man––you are the white god of the white people––and you will let the red men hold not anything that your white children want!”