She returned with a fine-looking elderly man whose long, iron-gray hair hung loose upon his shoulders, except for one little braid at the back, to which were tied several fine, large, eagle feathers, white with black tips. From the outer corner of each eye a blue line, apparently tattooed, ran zigzag down across his cheeks to his chin; on his naked breast was tattooed a rude but striking figure of a bird with wings spread, surrounded by many other zigzag lines. Here hung suspended from a string that passed around his neck, a tiny model of a war club, its ball-like head painted red.
“This is Rumbling-wings,” said my wife. “If any one can help you, he can.” And so I told him my story as I had told it to her.
He pondered for a while, then turned to my wife. “Run down to the spring, Whispering-leaves,” he said, “and get us some fresh water.” When she had disappeared with the bark bucket, he said, “I think I understand what the matter is. Flying-wolf, whose body you occupy, must have been killed or stunned by the Thunder arrow, and your spirit, which must have been floating near, took possession of his body. Where you come from I know not, but you must have been thinking of us and our time, when your spirit was driven from its body by another Thunder arrow. Whispering-leaves must not know this—that her real husband may be dead.
“What can you do? You can either make up your mind to live out your life among us and learn to be what she expects of her husband, or you can go to that same hilltop with me some day, and I will call back the Thunders to set you free again. Then maybe, if your own body has not been destroyed, you may return to it, and, perhaps, Flying-wolf’s spirit, if it has not already gone to the Land of Ghosts, will come back to this body. It is all a chance. To-night when the elders and chiefs come, lie in your bed here as if sick in body and say nothing; I will explain to them. As to what you want to do, think about it as long as you wish and when you decide, let me know. In the meantime learn all you can and take care of your mate and the boy.”
Just then Whispering-leaves (I was glad to learn her name!) came in with the water, and the old man dipped a gourdful for me, then drank himself. “Thanks, daughter,” he said to her, “your husband has been struck by lightning and his memory is very sick. Be good to him, and little by little it will come back. But do not expect too much of him at first. If you run short of food let my wife know. And you, Flying-wolf,” said he, “whenever you want to learn something come to my house. I am alone every night.” He went out.
I looked at Whispering-leaves and she at me; hope shone in her face, she smiled. The more I looked at her, the better I liked her.
The first night I visited Rumbling-wings, his wife, after spreading a mat for me, withdrew, murmuring something about visiting a neighbor for the evening. I had learned by this time the Lenape amenities, and so I did not start boldly off with my questions, but chatted quietly of this and that for a while, finally winding up with, “Why did my wife go to you when she heard I had been struck by a Thunder arrow? Why do you think you can call the Thunders to set my spirit free?”
“You are asking a hard question, my friend,” said Rumbling-wings after a moment’s cogitation, “and one which a Lenape does not like to discuss with another. But I realize that you have been cut off from the years of early training that most of our boys go through, and the only way I can make you understand is to tell you outright, and I feel that my Guardian Spirit will forgive me.
“In the first place, you know what the Thunder-Beings are—powerful spirits, helpers of the Great Spirit—in form at the same time man-like and bird-like. They bring the rain to water our crops and refresh the earth. You have often heard the rumbling of their wings in the storm, and have seen their arrows of flame shoot toward the earth as they hunt the great horned serpents and other man-destroying monsters which form their daily food. And it was one of those very arrows which, as you know, started you in life as a Lenape.
“Well, I suppose I must tell you, one of these Thunder-Beings is my Guardian Spirit and that is why people say that I am in league with the Thunder, and have Thunder power, and why they call on me in cases like yours.