“We know how it was with his father Awh-we––” said one. “In that day of trial he failed that once 107 in the battle with the Yutah. The old men let him pull weeds in the corn when the next war came.”
The strong fingers of Yahn broke the bird’s claw, and she tossed it from the terrace edge, and selected another.
“But the new young wife Koh-pé may make the son of his father brave for all that,” and Säh-pah who was not young and not winsome, watched Yahn, and felt content when she saw the Apache eyes grow narrow and the teeth set. “A wife with many robes and many strings of shells and blue stones, makes a man strong to fight for them. Ka-yemo will be a strong man now.”
“He is of my clan––Ka-yemo!” said Yahn panting with pent up fury, “he can fight,––all of our blood can fight!––if the war is here we can show you of the Panyoo clan how the Tain-tsain clan can fight with the new enemy!”
They all knew that Yahn Tsyn-deh could indeed fight, she wore eagle feathers and had a right to wear them since a season of the hunt on the Navahu border when a young warrior had stolen her for his lodge, and with his own club set with flint blades, had she let his spirit go on the shadow trail, and to her own village had she brought the scalp and the club, also his robe and beads of blue and of green stone––and she made the other women remember it at times.
“Ho!––and will it be you who bears a spear and a shield and a club on that day?” asked Säh-pah the skeptic.
“I fight that day––or any day, as strong as the fight any man of yours can ever make!” This retort of Yahn was met with half frightened giggles by the other women. Säh-pah had been unlucky in the matter of men. Yet, her list of favorites had not 108 been limited, and the sarcasm of Yahn was understood.
“It is good there is some one brave to meet the strangers!” and the smile of Säh-pah was not nice. “Maybe you go to ask for a man––maybe it is why you learn their words––maybe the Tain-tsain clan will ask for a white man for you!”
“When I ask––I will not be made a laugh, and sent home with a gift,”––and the other women squealed with shrill laughter and had great joy over the quarrel. The eyes of Säh-pah blazed. She tried to speak but her fury gave voice only in throaty growls, and an older woman than all of them stepped between them in protest.
“To your own houses––all you who would fight!” she decided––“go fight your own men if they send you away with gifts, but by my door I do not want panthers who scream!”