“He knows the white strangers will deal with one man of the tribe if they come,––and that will be honor for that man. He knows the words of the strangers. If you were not the most wise he would be chosen to make all talks, and he would be a great man. Not much has he said;––but his friends say things! Already they ask what magic touched the old men when you were made ruler. They say the Po-Ahtun-ho for all time was born in the place where he says prayers.”
“And I was not born in this place,” said Tahn-té, as he looked at the river valley, and remembered the desert sands of Tusayan, and the island of rock on which he had lived and been happy once. “It is true, Po-tzah. But the people forget when they say no other Ruler was born apart from his people. Po-se-yemo came from a cave in the cliff. He came down from the mountain to the people. He taught them to listen to mountain thoughts. I come from a rock in the desert, and the old men say I brought the Sign that the god made my way. We are yet young, Po-tzah, when we are older we will know whether the way of the gods is the way for this people. I know the words of Ka-yemo––but they are not to be talked of. Alone I go to face the Ancient Father––Sinde-hési. I go to the mountain of the Stone Face––I go to dance the dance for ancient wisdom. The old men know that the time has come for that.”
“Alone? No one in our day has danced alone before the faces! No one has danced in that place since the time of the fire across the sky, and that dancer did not live. You can dance there––Tahn-té?”
“I can dance there––By the arrow I have said it.”
His friend looked at him with a strange new regard. Each knew what it meant to be chosen for that dance of the ancient days.
There are two things a man may not do and have breath to live. The sacred arrow is held aloft when an oath is made. If the thing which he has told is a false thing the Sun Father gives lightening to the arrow, and the man of the oath speaks no more, and lives no more. He dies there in that place. All Te-hua men can tell you that is how it is. No one asks another to make an oath.
Also no one asks a medicine man to dance before the ancient picture of the stone in the hills. Only the unmated can dance there. It is the dance to the Supreme Father who is named not often. He is that One who gives earth creatures to the world without earth matings. Thus Po-se-yemo, the mountain god, was given to a maid as her child, and only the eagles and the shadow of the piñon tree knew. He also gave the two sons of wonder to the Apache goddess who slept on the mountain alone under the shadow of a rock reaching out. Water dripped from that rock and brought the birth dream, and the dream came true there in Apache land. Those two sons became the divine warriors. You can see to-day the giants who were demons and who were slain by those two sons who worked together for good on earth. The blood of the giants flowed through long valleys and turned to stone, and the heads of the giants are also stone now, and lie where they were severed from their bodies in the land of Navahu. Thus it has always been when the Ancient Father has sent the God-Thought to the earth. Only the Wind, or the Sun, or the Mist of the Cloud has been mate to the mother. 122 Yet the sons have been strong for magic and works of wonder.
Thus there has been through the ages, one sacred place where men may go for highest medicine––if they go before it is not too late!
Not since these two men were born had a man danced there, and the last man who did so had danced without the truth or the faith in his heart. No one ever knew if he found great medicine dreams, for he died there. After many days they went––and they found him dead.