Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 4 (1925-10).djvu/81
"So, nephew, my sister's son, you are cleaning moccasins for the agent's woman! It is good! Your great-grandfather, Fierce-for-his-country, was a man the very mention of whose name made the mountains tremble. It is even said that he killed five Yellow Earth warriors at one time. They attacked him from ambush, it is said, but he slew them all with his wife's corn pounder. Then there was your mother's father, Scares-them-all. He too was of the nature of a warrior. He joined the Sioux and went on the warpath with them far up the Upper Missouri, and came home covered with scars and with his shirt and leggings fringed with the scalps of enemies. Then there was your father, who fought in the Black Hawk war. They relate that he swam out into the Mississippi and upset a canoe loaded with Yellow Earths, warriors all, in the dark, and drowned three of them and escaped alive. They say truly, too, for I was there also, and drowned two more myself. I speak not of your father's family, but they too were never known to wear skirts. They were of the Thunder clan like yourself, of course, but, until now, who ever heard of a bearer of the Feathered Name [a member of the Thunder Clan] doing a woman's work? And you call yourself a man!"
Michael Angelo swept the brush back and forth over the shoe that he held in his hand. To all appearances he might not have heard a word of what his uncle had said. His pulse had not quickened, his face was as immobile as ever. Only his eyes betrayed any inward emotion. They had narrowed to slits, and from them shot a venomous gleam that, in a small way, reminded one of the crooked lightnings that flash from the eyes of his distant relatives the Thunder Birds, when they sweep the earth with their rains and loose their bolts of fire and destruction. Still Mike did not speak.
"It would not be so bad," continued the elder Indian, "if"—(he gave the agent's wife her name in the vernacular, and though descriptive, and keenly apt, it was not complimentary enough to bear translation)—"she were a friend to our people. One may do much for a friend, with honor. But she is not. She hates us. When she was employed at the agency, before the agent's real wife died, she treated us like dogs when we came in on business. Yes, she was too good for anything Indian, except our money. She was glad to take that. But the agent's old wife, she was a real woman. She had sympathy for the distressed, and help for the sick and poor. But this one treats us all, and you especially, like dirt under her feet. And, now that she has married the agent, she has her chance to do us harm every day. I don't see how he came to marry her—unless she worked magic on him. They say she believes in Indian magic. And He-comes-rumbling, of the Thunder clan, does a woman's work for that old Stinking Turtle!"
Michael Angelo continued with his task, and his uncle, having vented his spleen, went on about his business. But every bitter word that he had uttered had sunk deep in the breast of He-comes-rumbling. The wicked glint had left his eyes, and outwardly he was calm, but his blood boiled. It is no light thing among Indians to take a scolding from one's uncle, and he was roused to action. The shoes shone as never before, and still he worked on them. It was a long time before he carried them in to the agent's wife, but their fine polish brought him no thanks.
A large, arrogant woman, built like a draft horse, with coarse iron-gray hair and a red-streaked complexion, she curled back her lips contemptuously and switched back her skirt as if she feared contamination from the Indian as he entered the room.