The Wanderers

by Mary Johnston

The herdsmen went afar with the flocks, the bondwomen did as they were bid to do, ground the corn and carried the water. Certain of them, like certain of the herdsmen, ceased to make protest outward or inward. Gilhumat said nothing, but kneeling, crushed the grains beneath her handstone. Maihoma carried water from the stream to the huts. She moved slowly, with a body stiff and sore, for Marzumat, the chief woman, had beaten her terribly, as she had beaten Gilhumat. The valley women went about their manifold business, pursued vocation and avocation with a feeling of serenity.

The war-men came back, laden with copper. At the same time came again the heated weather. It seemed also that the Ji-Ji had only been asleep....

After five days of heat and Ji-Ji in an awakened condition, things changed again. One of the larger flocks, grazing far to the west, wandered out of the valley upon a plain behind the chain of hills. Here a band of other-men fell upon them. There had been three herdsmen. Two were slain. The third, a swift-foot, escaping, won back to the valley with the news.

The war-men who had gone for copper and the war-men who had stayed at home went out, swift-foot, to the west, out of the valley, through the hills to the plain. It was a small, newly arrived group that they found there, a wretched cluster of huts, wattle and dab, with little more in the way of possessions than the stolen flock. But the men and the women fought like wolves. Even the children bit and tore. But the group was very small.

The valley men killed and those they did not kill they bound. Fighting over, they ransacked the place, but found little spoil beyond their own recovered flock. Only in one hut they found jars filled with a fermented drink new to them and stronger than the drink the valley made.

The weather was hot and dry. The mood of the copper-digging and of the making of In-Tan’s image was passed. The struggle-lust and delight in killing, the more complex delight of binding fast the unslain, was over with for the time. Victory had slaked thirst for revenge. The goods were back with usury. The minds of the valley men were for the moment empty. They sat upon the earth and lifted to their lips the jars of drink.

It seemed to the valley men that their minds enlarged. There came to them from In-Tan, or perhaps only from Ji-Ji, a blissful sense of power and daring. They were such great war-men!

The captives remained bound in a space between the huts. The two or three men among them were those who, in the face of odds, had thrown down their weapons. The rest—the women—had fought to the end, but had been encumbered by the children. Now the children were dead, those two or three weaker men cowed. But the women reviled from their bonds. It was shameful that they should thus revile such great war-men, favourites of gods and Ji-Ji!

They looked at the women over the rims of the jars of drink. They had not looked so at the women of the purple mountain, the women they had taken to the women of the valley for a gift. But it seemed a long time since that day! Points of view must change in a changing world.... The hot weather and the Ji-Ji and the drink—never the little light man in the heart falling asleep while the little dark man stirred and grew.... The war-men began to reason, and it seemed to them that they reasoned loftily. The world was divided into one’s own people and other-people to whom nothing was owed. In-Tan certainly and probably Mao-Tan approved the division. Now, women—own-group women and other-women.... Certainly own-group women chose absolutely when they would pair and with whom they would pair. That was order-of-nature. No one questioned it.... But these other-group women.... If you could make war with other-women—if you could kill them—if you could bind them to their own door-posts—if you could take them for bondwomen to grind corn and carry water.... What else might you not do if you were sure that order-of-nature would not rise and blast you? Casuists sprang up and inner and outer arguing against any such abstractions as natural sanctities. The war-men tilted the jars of drink and found that the liquor helped to free them from abstractions. It gave them fire, it added height on height to their courage. It helped them to questions such as “For what, then, was greater strength given?” and “Do sanctities apply to the conquered?” It helped to the answers and the answers were according to their desires. Saran and Endar were the subtlest disputants.... All drank again and the pitchy fire within broke its bounds. Presently they were quite free from abstractions. They moved toward the other-group women....

The hot night went on. The day came up in a blaze of light.