The Sickness of Lone Chief
This is a tale that was told to me by two old men. We sat in the smoke
of a mosquito-smudge, in the cool of the day, which was midnight; and ever and anon, throughout the telling, we smote lustily and with purpose at such of the winged pests as braved the smoke for a snack at our hides. To the right, beneath us, twenty feet down the crumbling bank, the Yukon gurgled lazily. To the left, on the rose-leaf rim of the low-lying hills, smouldered the sleepy sun, which saw no sleep that night nor was destined to see sleep for many nights to come.
The old men who sat with me and valorously slew mosquitoes were
Lone Chief and Mutsak, erstwhile comrades in arms, and now withered
repositories of tradition and ancient happening. They were the last
of their generation and without honor among the younger set which had
grown up on the farthest fringe of a mining civilization. Who cared
for tradition in these days, when spirits could be evoked from black
bottles, and black bottles could be evoked from the complaisant white
men for a few hours' sweat or a mangy fur? Of what potency the fearful
rites and masked mysteries of shamanism, when daily that living
wonder, the steamboat, coughed and spluttered up and down the Yukon in
defiance of all law, a veritable fire-breathing monster? And of what
value was hereditary prestige, when he who now chopped the most wood, or best conned a stern-wheeler through the island mazes, attained the chiefest consideration of his fellows?
Of a truth, having lived too long, they had fallen on evil days, these
two old men, Lone Chief and Mutsak, and in the new order they were
without honor or place. So they waited drearily for death, and the
while their hearts warmed to the strange white man who shared with
them the torments of the mosquito-smudge and lent ready ear to their
tales of old time before the steamboat came.
"So a girl was chosen for me," Lone Chief was saying. His voice, shrill and piping, ever and again dropped plummet-like into a hoarse and rattling bass, and, just as one became accustomed to it, soaring upward into the thin treble--alternate cricket chirpings and bullfrog croakings, as it were.
"So a girl was chosen for me," he was saying. "For my father, who was
Kask-ta-ka, the Otter, was angered because I looked not with a needful
eye upon women. He was an old man, and chief of his tribe. I was the
last of his sons to be alive, and through me, only, could he look to
see his blood go down among those to come after and as yet unborn. But
know, O White Man, that I was very sick; and when neither the hunting
nor the fishing delighted me, and by meat my belly was not made warm, how should I look with favor upon women? or prepare for the feast of marriage? or look forward to the prattle and troubles of little children?"
"Ay," Mutsak interrupted. "For had not Lone Chief fought in the arms
of a great bear till his head was cracked and blood ran from out his
ears?"
Lone Chief nodded vigorously. "Mutsak speaks true. In the time that
followed, my head was well, and it was not well. For though the flesh
healed and the sore went away, yet was I sick inside. When I walked, my legs shook under me, and when I looked at the light, my eyes became filled with tears. And when I opened my eyes, the world outside went around and around, and when I closed my eyes, my head inside went around and around, and all the things I had ever seen went around and around inside my head. And above my eyes there was a great pain, as though something heavy rested always upon me, or like a band that is drawn tight and gives much hurt. And speech was slow to me, and I waited long for each right word to come to my tongue. And when I waited not long, all manner of words crowded in, and my tongue spoke foolishness. I was very sick, and when my father, the Otter, brought the girl Kasaan before me--"
"Who was a young girl, and strong, my sister's child," Mutsak broke
in. "Strong-hipped for children was Kasaan, and straight-legged and
quick of foot. She made better moccasins than any of all the young
girls, and the bark-rope she braided was the stoutest. And she had a
smile in her eyes, and a laugh on her lips; and her temper was not
hasty, nor was she unmindful that men give the law and women ever
obey."