CHAPTER VIThe Luck of the Dice
The summer passed pleasantly in the village of the Cliff. When the men went to the field to work the women often accompanied them, helping in the cultivation of the crop and gathering the wild berries and edible plants that grew in profusion in the fertile valley. In baskets swung from their heads by woven and padded bands they carried the ripened peaches up the steep stairs, spreading them out along the stone ledges to dry.
There was other work, too, that must be done while the weather was warm and pleasant. New earthenware bowls must be made while they could be baked in the summer sun. Garments of soft, exquisitely wrought feather-cloth, and of fur strips wound on heavy cords and woven into fabric, must be made ready for cold weather. There were new rooms to be built, too, for the rapidly increasing population of the village made the old quarters too crowded for winter comfort. So the men brought great gray and brown rocks from the slopes of the canyon, carrying them suspended from head bands as the women carried their baskets. These were carefully chipped and dressed with the great stone mauls, and set evenly and squarely into place, held there by layers of mortar which no one except old Honau knew how to mix.Then the women made a thin, plaster-like cement from colored earths and spread it on with their hands, smoothing it down with many careful pats which left the prints of slender brown fingers in many places on the wet wall. Sometimes the rooms were brightened by wavy red and yellow lines running bandwise just below the ceiling; sometimes they were decorated with sacred symbols such as might bring a peculiar blessing to the household living in them. But always, whatever the inside might be, the outside was cunningly wrought to look like the forbidding walls of the cliff, gray, and dull yellow and brown, with here and there mottled patches of subdued red, so that an enemy might have hard work to spy them out in passing through the canyon below.
It was nearly harvest time, and the corn was already ripening. Day after day the watcher in the field tower, keen-eyed Haida, had reported everything well, until the last lurking fears of even the old men were almost forgotten. The storerooms were being repaired and made ready for the new crop, and the men were working on a larger granary, or storage cist, some distance below the level of the cavern, where the heavy baskets of corn might be emptied without carrying them up the last steep third of the ascent.
Then, early one morning, a wild-eyed messenger from the field tower came hurtling up the niche stairs in the gray light to report evil tidings. A band of savages, of what race he could not say, had ridden their fleet ponies down through the canyons that night, carrying off and trampling down a considerable part of the precious crop.And what was worse, they had raided the very tower itself and had left Haida, whose practised eyes had failed to see them in the moon-blinded lower trail, silent on his face with an arrow between his shoulders. The messenger himself had escaped only by dropping quickly into the farthest shadow of the adjoining shelter-room and lying motionless against the darkest wall until the last sound of the ponies’ drumming feet had died away in the distance.
Mosu quieted the panic-stricken people who crowded about him in the early light as well as he could. One thing was sure, if the people of the Cliff were not to starve when the cold days came, the rest of the crop must be saved. Wisely seeing in vigorous action the best remedy for fear, he hastily organized men and women into bands for taking care of what was left of the grain, giving to the women the actual work of gathering that the men might be left free to protect them.
So, leaving the old men and smaller boys to look after the village, and with many cautions to Bimba to keep speedy messengers always ready to carry news of danger, the harvest bands went silently down the steep stairs and passed swiftly through the canyons to the great field. Once there, no time was lost in stripping the ears from the stalks and piling them into the wide-mouthed baskets which the women carried on their backs, and in cutting down the stalks with keen-edged flint knives to be carried home in bundles on the shoulders of the big boys. The wheat-heads were hastily snatched from their stems, to be shelled out by busy fingers in the leisure hours ofwinter. They worked in nervous haste, casting fearful glances up and down the canyon at every turn. From the tower the new watchman who had taken dead Haida’s place strained his eyes anxiously into vague distances, intent upon guarding, even to his own death, those lives so dependent upon his vigilance.
Swiftly as they worked, and quickly as the many trips to and from the village were made, it was many days before all the crop was safe and the people could breathe more easily in their well-guarded cavern home. But the old air of careless gayety was gone, and in its place was a constant atmosphere of apprehension. No one knew when the bold savages, encouraged by their success in the valley, might not undertake even so difficult a task as the storming of the cliff fastness. Rumors, too, were constantly afloat of murderous attacks on smaller outlying cliff dwellings, and once a small party that had been down the canyon to look for wild gourds came upon the body of a Cliffman, apparently from one of those distant houses, lying stiff with a Ute arrow in his breast.
In a consultation of the old men it was at last decided that the best thing to be done was to send messengers to the Rainbow and Bear Clans on the south, which were probably so far free from attack, and to the Seven Cities on the North, asking them to be ready to send aid should the threatened danger fall. Mosu, standing stern and tall in the middle of the court, told the people of this decision and asked for messengers.
“The Walpi road is a dangerous one,” he said, “to be undertaken by no one who is afraid to lose his life. Hemust go alone, for one is as safe as ten, and we have no lives to risk without great reason. I would not willingly send any forth to such chance of death, but if one will offer himself—”
Before he could finish the sentence fifty men and youths had stepped forward. Mosu looked at them with proud sadness.
“Your lives are precious to us,” he said, his eyes kindling, “and there are many among you who cannot be spared. Let those who have wives and children step back, for them we cannot lose.”
Reluctantly more than half of those who had come forth drew back again. There remained only the young men, straight, supple, earnest-eyed lads who were the very flower of the village. In their brown faces was no sign of fear. Mosu scanned them, one by one, his lips set in a thin line, his eyes tenderly kind.
“It is danger we offer you,” he said slowly, “but it is also the greatest honor we can give. Choose among yourselves who shall be sent, for you know your own worth.”
Kwasa stepped forward eagerly.
“Let us toss the dice,” he begged, “and hang our fortunes on the first who shall throw the whites.”
Mosu thought a moment. The idea appealed to him in two ways; for one thing, it removed from anyone the responsibility of sending a comrade forth to possible death, and for another he knew the gambling spirit was strong in every Cliffman’s breast and the decision of the dice would never be disputed.
“Who has dice?” asked Mosu, turning to the onlookers.
Kwasa undid a fold of his belt and gave the priest the three sticks of cane he had carried so long.
Mosu handed them to the boy who stood nearest. He tossed them nervously, amid a breathless silence. As they came down showing two reds and one white, a woman on the lower terrace gave a sobbing cry. Turning toward her, his lip quivering with disappointment, the lad saw his mother, and bounded across the court to where she sat.
“The gods be praised—they have not taken my son from me,” she said, throwing her arms about his neck.
“But I would have served them well,” he cried, trying hard to keep back unmanly tears.
One after another the youths came forward to try their fortunes with the dice. But no one threw the whites together. Wiki, trembling with eagerness, found them at his feet with all the red sides up, and gave place to Kwasa, who came next.
Carefully placing the sticks in his fingers, and with a quick glance at old Honau, who stood watching with much interest, Kwasa spun the dice high in the air. And when they came down every one knew that the danger and the honor had fallen to Kwasa by the favor of the gods. Tcua, his old grandmother, scorning the weakness that fought its way to her moist eyes, called him proudly to her side and touched the turquoise at his throat.
“You will come back safe—it is a charm,” she said confidently.
But once more Kwasa hid the cane strips carefully in his belt.
“Yes, I will come back safe—for I have a charm,” he said, smiling.
So Kwasa took the long trail toward the Seven Cities alone and in the dark, for so it was thought best, since he knew the first part of the way well and would need daylight more after coming to the unknown country. And because he had thrown the chance of next value, Wiki was given the place of lesser honor, because of lesser danger, that of messenger to the Clans of the Rainbow and the Bear.