The Essential Writings of James Willard Schultz. James Willard Schultz
of that. As though we could help that! The white men do as they wish with us and our children, and we are powerless. Anyhow, if the four priests went to Rain God without the least taint of anything of the whites within them or upon their persons — why, then how could the great god refuse their prayers for rain?
“So it was that, after days of preparation and much prayer, we started out one night upon the ancient trail to this mountain, the trail that had . not been used by our people for years and years, almost a hundred years. Of those who had last traveled it but few had returned: our terrible enemies, the Apaches, had killed the most of the men, and captured nearly all of the women and children. And it is not without fear of the Apaches that we are here, weaponless. We could not carry white men’s rifles — offensive to Rain God — nor bows because we no longer have arrow-points of flint and have lost the art of making them. Tell me: do you ever see Apaches, here upon this mountain? ”
“No, I haven’t seen any of them up here,”
I told him. "They are not allowed to have guns, and are pretty well guard’ed by the soldiers, four companies of cavalry at Fort Apache, sixty miles from here.”
“But some of them do have guns, I have heard.”
‘‘Yes. They manage to keep a few hidden from the soldiers, and now and then sneak away from their agency to hunt deer.”
“Just deer?” he asked, meaningly.
“Well, some white men have been found in these mountains, murdered in a horrible manner,” I answered.
“Of course! The Apaches are happy only when they are torturing people to death!” he exclaimed.
“The Apaches and the Navajos, what have n’t they done to us!” he went on. “We were not always just a few people living out there on the cliffs in the middle of the great desert, and depending upon the rains for the growing of our crops. No! We were a people of thousands and thousands, living far south in the Red Earth country; the Giant Cactus country; and our name then was as it is now, People-of-Peace. We lived in large, many-roomed, two- and three-stories high pueblos that we built in the wide valleys, and from the rivers we brought plenty of water in wide, deep ditches for our plantings. All up and down those valleys and far out upon the desert were our green growing crops of corn, beans, squash, sugar-cane, tobacco, and cotton. We were rich! Rich and happy, we People-of-Peace!
‘‘But that was not to last. Years and years before the first white men came —’’
“We know who they were: the Spanish conquistador, Coronado, and his little band of soldiers. They came into this country in 1540,” Hannah interrupted.
“Yes. And they were the bearers of more misfortune to us! But as I was going to say: Years and years before their time came down upon us new and terrible enemies, the Apaches, and their brothers, the Navajos. They murdered us in our fields; waylaid and wiped out our hunting parties; destroyed our crops; and at last forced us to abandon our broad, rich, irrigated valleys and move north into the mountains, where, in the cliffs of the deep canyons, we built our homes. There, too, the Apaches and the Navajos kept attacking us. Our numbers became less and less, until, at last, the few who survived moved far out into the desert and built homes, there where we are to-day. Even there our enemies occasionally came, but they could not force their way up the steep and narrow trails to our pueblos, and so were unable to make an end to us.
‘‘So, there you have the story of my people,” our visitor concluded, his voice dropping almost to a whisper, the fire of bitter anger dying in his eyes.
“But you spoke of more wrongs done you by Coronado. What of him Hannah asked.
“Yes. He whom my people named ‘Hard-Clothing Chief.’ Because, of course, he wore shirt, leggins, and hat of iron, and his men, too. But I cannot tell you about him now; my old men are anxious for my return to them. But you shall know about Coronado, for we remain here four days. Good-night to you.”
He went out, carefully closing the door behind him, and Hannah and I felt as though we had been in another world. How much the young Indian knew! What a tale of terrible persecution of his people he had told us! More than ever we hated and feared the Apaches, so close to us down there on the south slope! And well we knew that if they discovered our visitor and his four old men, there would be murder right here upon our mountain. How the Apaches would delight in taking — at this late day — five more scalps of the Hopi people!
We had no more thought of reading, that night; what we had just learned was far more interesting than anything we could get from the printed page. Said Hannah, as I prepared to go outside to my bunk: know that I should feel that this we have heard about Rain God and his home here upon this mountain, is nothing but a crazy heathen tale, but I just can’t do it. I feel — oh, I can’t explain how I feel. I am all mixed up in my mind!”
I said nothing. But as I lay in my bunk waiting for sleep, my heart went out to the persecuted People-of-Peace, and to the four old men down at our spring, resting from their long tramp across the hot and dusty desert, and firm in the belief that their Rain God would answer the prayers they were about to make to him here upon this storm-swept peak.
I awoke a little later than usual, and after calling Hannah, took the trail to the spring for a bucket of water. As I neared it I heard a deep, pleasant voice fervently making what seemed to be an address. I rounded a clump of spruces and stopped short: in a row by a little fire sat our visitor of the evening and three of his old men The fourth one stood upon the lower side of the fire, with uplifted hands, talking impassionedly on and on, and I sensed at once that he was addressing the rising sun. I noiselessly drew back into the spruces, waited until he ceased speaking, and then went on down. The young Hopi called out a ‘‘good-morning’’ to me, and said something to the old men, and they one by one shook my hand, he who had addressed the sun saying, as the young interpreter told me: “We heard about you last night. It is good that you keep watch for the putters-out-of-fires, down below: the trees love life as well as we do.”
Said another: “We learn that you have a little house upon the top of this mountain. Tell us just where it is.”
‘‘Right upon the top of a little rock butte at the south end of the summit,” I answered. And when that had been turned into their language they looked solemnly, meaningly at one another, and talked together for a moment or two, the youth listening intently to what they said. Meantime, I looked at them, and thought that I had never seen more kindly, intelligent faces, seamed and leathery with age though they were. All wore their gray hair cut square just above their shoulders and held in place with a narrow band of buckskin, and their clothing was just like that of the youth, of blue-black, homespun wool. Under a tree near the fire were a number of buckskin sacks of different size and well filled — probably with food, I thought. Close in front of the fire were five small bowls of painted pottery, much like the pottery fragments strewn about my cave hole, and the lookout butte.
One of the old men soon questioned me again, and all of them listened eagerly, breathlessly, I thought, to my answers.
‘‘You have been all over the top of this mountain?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Up there near the north end of it and a little way down on the other slope, did you see a hole in the rock?”
“Yes.”
“Did you go down into it?”
“Yes,” I answered again. And when the youth had interpreted my reply they suddenly seemed to wilt: they groaned as though in great pain; and the young interpreter looked at me reproachfully.
“But I went in only a little way; the hole is blocked with a piece of fallen roof rock,” I added. And at that the youth clapped his hands and shouted, “Good! Good!” to me, and when he told the old men what I had said, they straightened up and smiled at me, talking excitedly all four at once.
‘'It is that they are glad you did not go in there. That cave is Rain God’s kiva, or as you would call it, church. It is only for him, and for certain ones of our priests, these four. Had you