Early Candlelight, page 7
The boys scrambled impartially over them, and Deedee welcomed them alike with tender kisses. But she held Narcisse’s hand as they made their way up the bluff. She had perceived at once that this was a happy return. Never, she decided in swift upward glances, had she seen him look so happy. The Indians, with their usual aptness, called Narcisse The Changing Countenance, and indeed his face mirrored his mood with unfailing exactness. To-day his black eyes sparkled, his white teeth flashed from the tangle of beard, and as they climbed he gave her hand little squeezes which Deedee returned.
Tess and the father were waiting in the cabin. Prodigally the travelers tossed out their gifts. The DuGays were as improvident as all canoemen. They had always the hand in the pocket until the earnings of their winter were spent. Deedee, feeling of new red ear bobs and listening to the joyful racket of talk, thought what a day it was, the nicest day of the year!
Denis wanted to hear the winter’s news—how the Indians had behaved, what the outlaw traders had done, whether credits had been refused to any and what mischief it had caused. It developed that all had gone splendidly. The Indians had been industrious; the pelts were many and thick. Over twenty packs had come in, containing buffalo robes and deer skins, as well as the skins of minks, martins, foxes, wolves, beavers, bears, fishers, otters and raccoons, not to mention the musk-rats, of which there had been several thousand.
Denis rubbed his knees with satisfaction. “M’sieu Page will find it a good winter.”
“Narcisse,” said Amable slyly, “has found it a good winter also.”
“Narcisse has had much hospitality from the Indians.”
“Narcisse is very friendly with the People of the Leaf.”
There was something hidden in these jokes. Deedee looked up quickly. And even Tess, who followed the French but poorly, paused in her work of kindling the fire for tea.
Narcisse had an Indian woman? But Narcisse had had Indian women before. He had had women all up and down the St. Peters, to Tess’s sorrow. Narcisse with his changing moods of light and dark was loved by woman. That was an old story, and his brothers would not find it a subject for humor. Yet old Denis thought that they did.
“Narcisse, he has fallen in love again?” he demanded, clapping his son on the back.
Narcisse smiled like a young boy—actually, like a boy of sixteen. He flushed, too, under his tan. And Hypolite and Amable, although they had said so much, said no more. Denis looked more serious.
“It isn’t—it isn’t that you are to marry yourself?”
“Not in the usual way,” answered Narcisse.
“Not in the—what do you wish to say?”
“I am going down to Prairie du Chien, where one can find a priest.”
“A priest? For an Indian girl?”
“Ah,” cried Narcisse eagerly, “but this is no ordinary Indian girl!” His brothers snorted at that, and Narcisse turned upon them quickly. His black face sobered them.
“And it’s glad I am,” spoke Tess from the fire. “If Narcisse has found a good Indian girl, it is right that he should marry her with a priest.” Coming forward, she put a protective hand on his shoulder.
“Well, there are good girls in that country,” agreed old Denis easily. “They are not like these near the fort. They make good industrious wives and are faithful to their men.”
“She is a good girl, I assure you, father,” burst out Narcisse.
She was, he said, the daughter of War Club, head warrior of Running Walker’s band. Her brothers were among the best hunters in the tribe. Her mother was from Good Road’s village near the Entry. She was young, she was virtuous, she was very comely. All the braves of her village had played their flutes all night long outside her father’s tepee. More than one had ventured inside with a lighted wisp of hay for her to blow out if she would receive him. But she had blown out no lights, she had smiled on no braves, her Virgin Feast had been celebrated without a shadow.
And she had fallen in love with Narcisse as he with her. Not so much in love, perhaps, but that was as it should be. She had laughed at his ardor, his earnestness, and had been willing to marry him in the Indian way, with him giving blankets and ponies to her father, and herself carried by head and heels to his lodge. And indeed to an Indian’s way of thinking that was a ceremony entirely sacred, but Narcisse would have none of it.
He wanted to take her down to Prairie du Chien and marry her as white women were married. She listened with the smile of a child listening to legends when he told her what they would do. They would go down the Mississippi on a steamboat, yes, on one of those fire canoes which at first had so terrified her people. They would find a Black Blanket to listen to their vows. And when they returned she would no longer walk behind the hunters and carry burdens. She would do nothing but sweep out their cabin with willow boughs and cook the venison he brought her. Narcisse paused in his flow of eager talk.
“And what is she called, Narcisse?” asked Deedee, listening intently with bright eyes on his face.
“Hârpstina. She is the third daughter.” The Dakotas, as Deedee knew, named their children automatically in the order of their birth. The first son was Chaska, the first daughter Winona, and so on. Ten such names were provided.
“But has she no other?” urged Deedee, anxious to hear the picturesque name which was often bestowed later as a result of some virtue or fault, achievement or comic mistake.
“Yes,” said Narcisse, flushing again. “They call her Light Between Clouds.”
“Oh, Narcisse, how pretty!”
“No prettier than she is,” observed Hypolite generously.
“And are we to see her soon?” Tess inquired.
They were, it seemed, to see her soon. She was coming down to Good Road’s village on a visit to her grandmother. She was coming in May, when the muskrat hunt and the sugar camp would be over and the time for Indian pleasures had arrived. She was happy, Narcisse admitted, to be near her lover for the summer.
“But she won’t be much nearer than if she had stayed at home. It is necessary for me to go to the Traverse, if M’sieu Page can use me there. It takes money to make a trip by steamboat to Prairie du Chien, I assure you.” Narcisse walked back and forth, across the cabin, jingling the few coins left in his pocket, strutting a little.
“I shall keep her from being lonely,” said Deedee in her slow speech. She crossed the room to Narcisse. “Will you take me to Good Road’s village?” she asked.
“The moment of her arrival,” he promised, taking her hand.
And he was as good as his word. Less than a week later his canoe pushed off from the landing and took the serpentine course up the St. Peters. It was early in the morning. A sky still faintly pink arched across the wide, cool valley. The trees on the slopes were only brushed with green, but the wild plum was in snowy bloom and over the river the cottonwoods hung tiny tinkling leaves, the willows shook out green tails, and the small yellow warblers sang with an elation which matched the feeling in Deedee’s heart.
Narcisse wasn’t going to be unhappy any more! He was going to marry, with a priest. He was going to have a wife and his own cabin and numbers of babies, no doubt, for his sister to take care of. Deedee sat in her end of the canoe and smiled upon him tenderly.
The sun marched higher, and the soft color faded. Narcisse uncorked a bottle of tea which he had rolled in a blanket. It was still steaming and tasted good. He paused to smoke, too. Even on his way to see his love, Narcisse would have his pipe. While he smoked he talked about Light Between Clouds, how shy, how sweet, how pretty she was. “She has a face like a little ermine,” said Narcisse.
Deedee had never been so far from home. She had never been to an Indian village, and she looked up eagerly at those they passed. The summer houses were already erected, airy enclosures of poles and leaves, replacing the winter tepees of dressed buffalo skin. Usually the houses were clustered on the bluff; the squaws were in the bottomland, hoeing. They passed Black Dog’s village, Penichon’s village, Shakopay’s, the largest of all. Then the river curved again. Narcisse jumped out to wade knee deep as he pulled them over a difficult rapid, and there was Good Road’s village pitched on a grassy bank.
The chiefs house stood near the water, and the voices of his two wives quarreling came out to them as Narcisse beached his canoe. Good Road had not had the sense to marry sisters. In fact he had been foolish enough to take one wife with Chippewa blood. When Bets was taunted with this, she answered by throwing wood. There was so much friction in his house that Good Road stayed little at home.
The entire village was far from peaceful. Deedee thought at first that a war party was preparing, but Narcisse assured her that the confusion was quite usual. The Indians, he explained, did not eat or sleep at regular hours. All did what they pleased when it pleased them to do it. As a result their villages were not quiet by night or day, and one learned not to mind it.
Within one leafy house an old man was dying. Spirit Killer, the Medicine Man, was busy with gourd and rattle. Under a basswood tree a lover was playing the flute. Near him a woman was mourning. Her face was blackened and she emitted hideous cries as she cut her arms and legs with stones. A herald in monotonous singsong was calling guests to a feast.
And dogs were barking everywhere. The dogs were only less numerous than the children who swarmed about the newcomers. The children were curious and their elders were friendly. A young woman chopping wood, an old man smoking kinnikinic in a long red pipe, a brave making his toilet, gave them greetings as they passed. The brave was painting his face, braiding his hair and arranging his eagle feathers with many glances into a small mirror.
“He must know that Light Between Clouds has come. Much good it will do him!” scoffed Narcisse.
Light Between Clouds was visiting her grandmother, She Who Bathes Her Knees. Narcisse inquired for the latter, and a small Indian boy ran before them to her house. The relation between grandmother and granddaughter was a close one with the Sioux. Narcisse was anxious to meet the old woman who could do so much to favor him.
She was sitting in the doorway mending moccasins, a small bent figure. Her black eyes snapped in her seamed brown face with singular vigor, however. Light Between Clouds sat near on a doeskin shawl, embroidering. She sat sidewise with both feet tucked under her, as well-bred Indian girls must sit, and she was too decorous to speak to Narcisse, but she smiled shyly at Deedee while he addressed himself with polite phrases to the grandmother.
Deedee stood looking at her. She was just as pretty as Narcisse had said. She was the prettiest Indian girl Deedee had ever seen. She had the small hands and feet of all Sioux beauties. Her eyes were large and soft, her teeth little and white, her skin like gold. Two thick glossy braids fell over her shoulders and rested on her little swelling bosom. A line of vermilion marked the parting of her hair, and there were red circles painted on her cheeks.
She must have expected Narcisse, Deedee thought, for she had put on all her finery. She wore ear bobs and many strings of beads and a necklace of elks’ teeth and another made of thin tinkling silver plates. She had on a clean okendokenda, too. It was made of bright calico and crossed modestly below the throat. A blue cloth skirt was folded about her hips. Her red leggins were hung with ribbons, and her moccasins were worked with quills and beads like those which she was now so attentively embroidering.
After he had conversed with the old woman for a while, Narcisse ventured to address her.
“This is Narcisse’s little sister,” he said, pointing to Deedee.
Light Between Clouds smiled shyly at Deedee again.
“She will keep you from being lonely,” said Narcisse, “when he goes up the river to earn money.”
“Won’t you come to visit us?” asked Deedee eagerly in her broken Sioux. “My mother said to ask you.”
“No,” cut in the grandmother. “She will not visit in her lover’s lodge until the price is paid.”
“But I am to do much more than buy her with blankets,” cried Narcisse laughing. “Haven’t you heard that we are to go by steamboat to Prairie du Chien and be married in the white man’s way?”
“I will believe it when I see it,” answered the grandmother sourly.
However, she went inside to get food for them. At the seasons when game is plenty, the kettle is always boiling in a Dakota home. While she was gone, Light Between Clouds lifted her large soft eyes and gave Narcisse an entreating look. It was as if she prayed him not to be offended with her grandmother. Narcisse leaned over and squeezed her hand, but he was well away from her when the grandmother returned. She brought wooden bowls filled to the brim with boiled goose and the entrails of goose which had been roasted in the ashes. While they were eating, she continued:
“My granddaughter is very beautiful. Her father could get blankets and ponies and kettles and much red cloth if he were to marry her to a chief of his own people or to a great white trader.”
“I shall give a good price myself,” said Narcisse good-humoredly, gulping his stew.
“Perhaps. Then why do you not marry her now? What are you waiting for?”
“I am going to marry her with a priest, old woman. It is going to be a real marriage in a church, such as white women have.”
“Um-m-m,” said the grandmother. Her tone implied, “It sounds well.”
“You know it, don’t you, Light Between Clouds?” asked Narcisse. He spoke lightly, but there was a solemn undercurrent in his voice.
She smiled at him. She had, indeed, a smile like the sun coming out. It turned Narcisse’s head a little. Grandmother or no grandmother, he bent toward her and caught the little golden hand and crushed it against his bearded face.
“You have hold on my heart,” he said in a low tone, rapidly.
She Who Bathes Her Knees jumped up, chattering. “See? See? Prairie du Chien, eh? Was your mother mad to let you come here near him before the ponies and blankets are paid?”
“They will be paid, old woman,” cried Narcisse, throwing back his head and laughing.
“I know your kind,” said the grandmother. “I have seen them before in a long lifetime.”
“And it’s a good kind, isn’t it?” begged Narcisse. “That is a marvelous stew, grandmother. Could I have another bowlful?”
Still grumbling, the old woman went to the fire. Narcisse kissed his fingers and laid them over the red mouth of Light Between Clouds. Deedee shut her eyes. They didn’t even know she was there, but she knew she shouldn’t watch them. She kept her eyes benignantly closed until the grandmother returned.
VIII
M’SIEU PAGE was able to use Narcisse at the Traverse. He set off one morning soon after his return, waving his cap at Deedee on the bank, calling out to her that he would get Light Between Clouds to come down and pay her a visit. He was planning to stop at Good Road’s village on his way up the river. He would arrange it, he said. The old woman wouldn’t mind her coming, with the villain, Narcisse, away.
“Look out for her well!”
“I promise you, Narcisse!” Deedee threw reassurance into her shout. It was so good to see him starting off in such elation.
Narcisse pushed his light bark to the center of the stream. He rounded M’sieu Page’s island, threaded those small sandy islets where Indians this morning were hunting turtle eggs, and darted upstream like a dragon-fly in spite of the strong spring current.
Through the succeeding days Deedee watched faithfully. As spring advanced, the DuGays looked down not on the St. Peters but on a sea of treetops. Only here and there was a bit of silver framed in green. At first, every time a canoe flashed past these open spaces, Deedee ran down the hill. But she couldn’t keep that up. The St. Peters was soon too heavily laden with keel boats and canoes.
And the Mississippi had more than canoes. Early in May Captain Throckmorton brought the steamboat Warrior triumphantly round the bend. The garrison had had word of its coming. A runner from Little Crow’s village had brought the happy tidings, and all the inhabitants of the colony rushed down to the landing to await it. The Indians assembled, too, to see old Walk in the Water, but when it really rounded the point, puffing majestically and proceeding without pole or paddle, those Indians from the inland who were there on a visit to the Agency, raced up the bluff and out to the prairies, their blankets horizontal behind them, while the sophisticates who dwelt on the rivers followed them with jeers.
The Warrior brought varied articles for trading, welcome food supplies, clothing, books, magazines, mail, and many fascinating visitors. A real Hungarian count had essayed the novel trip to the Falls of St. Anthony. M’sieu Page and the ladies and gentlemen of the command went on board. Animated groups stood chatting on the decks.
Among the more fashionable arrivals, two tall, fresh-faced New England boys in clumsily fitting home-woven clothes went almost unnoticed. They carried a carpet-bag and looked eagerly about them. After a few moments’ conversation and much searching of the high bluffs with their eyes, one of them addressed the group of staring children.
“Would you be so kind as to direct us to the Agency?”
Deedee and her brothers were the only ones who spoke English. As the oldest of that group, Deedee stepped forward, smiling. “Yes, sir. I’ll take you there.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” answered the one who had spoken, and both took off their hats.
Deedee gave Andrew Jackson to George Washington and ran up the wagon road, the tall young men striding behind.
“Major Taliaferro isn’t here to-day,” she volunteered as they reached the Agency.
The brothers regarded each other. “Perhaps you’d better see the commandant, Sam’l,” suggested the taller, whom Deedee thought was also the younger from his manner of yielding leadership.
“I expect I had.”
“Shall I go with you, Sam’l?”
“No, thank you, Gideon. God will go with me.”
