The Runaway Papoose/Chapter 14

Bumpety-bump!” went the wagon of the trader over the hard, rocky road that led into the desert, and “Bumpety-bump!” went the hearts of Nah-tee and Loki and Moyo—lower and lower until it seemed as if they would almost stop. Now, what would happen! What would they do in that far-away place, Zunani, that up to now had been only a name to any of them; and how could they ride, mile after mile, in a thing so hard that already their bones were beginning to ache—and they could hardly breathe under the skins.

“Oh,” cried Nah-tee, and she gave a great shake to her head, “it is like breathing mush that is old!”

“Maybe if we cry out loud someone will hear us,” said Moyo.

​“Everyone is up on top of the mesa,” Loki replied. “That is why no one came to the hogan, and, besides, we could not cry to make a noise as loud as a horned toad under this load of skins—and it is hot—aouw!—How it is hot!”

“Ai—Ai—Ai!” sang the trader to his horse, and there was no melody to the tune and no words, but it was endless—and on they rode into the desert—and on—and on. Over rocks that banged them about like little pebbles in the wagon, and over other places that made a swishing sound, and they went slow over those places and knew they were sand; and then they would all slide to the forward end of the wagon (that was when they went down into a wash) and back again they would go—bump!—against the board at the back (and that was when they came up again out of the wash). And it seemed they had been riding for days and days, when the driver gave a pull to his horse and said some angry words, and they stopped. Nah-tee could see through a little hole in one of the skins that they were in a very narrow place in the road where a high, sandy bank came close to either side of them.

“Hi!” called the driver of their wagon to someone in the road. “Take thy old lump of a burro out of the ​way. Do not your eyes tell you that it is very narrow here? How can I pass if you, fat one, and thy lazy burro, fill all the way!”

“Do you think I have stopped him in this place because it is a pleasant thing?” answered back an angry voice. “Use the eyes that you have in your head and see how he does not choose to move. Thou lazy one!” and “Whack!” came the sound of beating.

“I know that voice,” said Nah-tee excitedly. “Moyo, do you hear that voice? It is the fat one, and he has found his burro.”

“I hear him,” said Moyo, and he sounded as if he were talking from under a pile of sand. “I hear him, but he cannot hear us—he makes so very much noise.” And it was true. The man of the wagon and the man of the burro both talked at the same time, and in between came whacks on the burro, so that any sound from the wagon they could not hear at all.

“Get out of the way,” cried the trader. “I shall not wait longer.”

“And if you will not wait you will fly!” cried the other. “There is not place for both my burro and the wagon, and my burro will not move.”

“Then I will go over him,” said the driver, and ​made as if to drive his horse forward, but the other gave a shout at that.

“Thou pig from Zunani,” he cried, “keep back your wagon. Do not dare to move until my burro comes away.” And he came nearer to the wagon when he said that, and Nah-tee put her mouth to the little hole in the skin and gave a cry. It was not very loud, but the man heard it and jumped.

“What have you there?” he cried, and his eyes grew big with surprise. “What have you in that wagon?”

“It is nothing,” said the trader, and he slapped his horse impatiently.

“But it has a voice,” said the fat man again, and he took a step nearer to the wagon.

“It is a pig,” cried the trader. “Do not come near—it is a pig!”

“Ai!” cried Loki then, and Moyo, in the same breath. “Come and help us!” and the mouth of the fat man dropped wide open, and he looked with angry and astonished eyes at the trader.

“It is children!” he cried, and he spoke as if he could not believe the very words that he said. “Art thou a stealer of children?”

“No,” answered the trader, but fear was beginning

​to come into his voice, “I do not steal—let me by.”

“Come down from there!” cried the fat one now. “Come down from that wagon and I will break you in two pieces. You evil one—how is this? But surely I shall tell it at the mesa, and they will put you in the iron house of the white man.”

“Oh, no!” cried the trader, and he was shaking with very real fear now, for he knew well that the fat one was strong and he could not fight him. “It is not I who steal. I but do the thing Su-hú-bi told me. He will kill me if I do not obey. The word of Su-hú-bi is strong.”

The fat one did not answer, but he walked over to the wagon and pulled off the skins that by now were almost choking the children, and when he saw who it was in the wagon, wider yet dropped his jaw.

“Ai-ee!” he said. “And how do you come here, in this place?” It was to Moyo that he spoke, and to Nah-tee, for he remembered them very well.

“It is true what he says about Su-hú-bi,” cried Loki. “It was Su-hú-bi put us here. But it is not the word of Su-hú-bi that is so strong—it is the money of Su-hú-bi.”

“Here,” cried the trader, and he ran his hands into the pockets of his coat and brought out the ​money—the silver chain and the ring were in another pocket and he did not bring them out. “Here,” and he offered the money to the fat one. “I will give it to you—all of it—if you will not tell of this thing, and if you will take them—those children. And if Su-hú-bi has words to say, tell him that you fought me until I could fight no more.”

“Su-hú-bi will have no words to say. This is a thing that will shame even Su-hú-bi,” said the fat one, but he took the money, and a look of great satisfaction came to his face, and he cut the thongs that bound the children and set them down, very gently, in the road. And then he led his burro around the wagon—for now he could make him to come—and put Nah-tee on a soft blanket on his back.

The trader, too, was glad to have things so, and made a sound to his horse that started him going—and then he looked back down the road he had come and gave a queer sound in his nose.

“Ail” he cried. “Now it is you who will be called a stealer of children, fat one. See how they come down the road.” And he drove quickly away—as quickly as he could make his horse to go—for down the road came a cloud of dust, and in the dust were those who rode on horses!

​When Chi-weé reached the foot of the trail she had a feeling of disappointment that Loki was not there. Somehow she had thought that he would be there and it was strange that she had not seen him in the pueblo—always when there was a dance or any good time he came to where she was, and they watched it together, for they were very good friends. But this time he did not come, and no one had word of where he was.

She waited for just a little, looking out over the desert with her hand to her eyes, and then she went to the corral where Magic, her pony, was kept. And when she looked in the corral her eyes grew big with surprise, for there was the pony of Loki and another pony that she had never seen before. If Loki’s pony was here, Loki could not be very far away, and a puzzled little frown came to the face of Chi-weé. The ponies crowded close to the bars of the corral and made soft nicker sounds for food, and even the little baby burro came, and Ba-ba the goat, and they looked at Chi-weé with eyes that tried hard to speak to her.

“Oh,” she cried, “if you could only tell me where Loki has gone! I think we could find that little girl if Loki were here,” and Ba-ba answered her in goat ​talk, but Chi-weé could not understand, and she turned again and looked out into the desert; but there was only a fat woman in sight, and an old man, and they were talking excitedly together as they came nearer to the mesa; and then Chi-weé saw that the man was Mah-pee-ti, and she ran to him and cried out before she was near:

“Have you seen Loki, Mah-pee-ti? Do you know where he is?”

“Ai,” cried the woman, before he could answer, “if only we had horses maybe we could catch them. But the horse of Mah-pee-ti is on the top of the mesa, and I have none.”

“What is it?” asked Chi-weé breathlessly. ““Who could you catch?”

“It is all three of them,” answered the woman. “all the children, and Loki was one. They were in a hogan all night—fastened in—and when I went for one to help to move away the logs at the door, Su-hú-bi came and sent them away in a wagon. Down that road they have gone—I saw them. And Su-hú-bi laughed in my face when I cried to bring them back. But he has gone up the mesa, and if we had horses we could bring them back.”

“I do not understand,” said Chi-weé. “All that ​you say is strange, but here are horses—here, in this corral—and if Loki is with them we will go fast and catch them.”

And they all three ran back to the corral, and the fat woman got on the strange pony, for it was the largest, and they rode fast down the road where she had seen the wagon go, and Chi-weé felt a great excitement beat in her heart as they ran, and she asked questions of the woman.

It is a little girl,” cried the woman, “a lost little girl and two boys—and Su-hú-bi, the evil one with little eyes, has a reason—I do not know what it is—that they must not go up in that pueblo and see Lampayo. And so he has told this man to take them away. I saw how he put them in a wagon, but I was not near and could not stop him, and all the people are up on the mesa to see the dance. But Mah-pee-ti came down, and I have told him. I could fight Su-hú-bi or I could fight anyone for that little girl. But they were gone before I could get close, and Su-hú-bi and the two men laughed at me as I ran.”

“Was the name of the little girl Nah-tee?” asked Chi-weé suddenly. “Did they call her that?”

“Nah-tee—that is it!” said the woman. “And she has lost her mother and her father. I have a sorry ​feeling for that little girl, and I hope we can catch her and bring her back. I will fight that man if he will not let her go.”

“I will fight him, too,” cried Chi-weé, and Mah-pee-ti did not speak, but there was a look in his eyes that said it would not be good for the man in the wagon if he did not let the children come back. And all this time they had been riding very fast down the road, and now the woman gave a cry.

“There is the wagon. We must go faster. And look, who are those who stand in the road?”

“They are running away,” cried Chi-weé. “See how they are running away!” for it was plain that three children and a man were trying very hard to climb up the steep bank that was by the road in this place; and a burro that was with them raised his head and looked curiously at the horses that came flying down the road.

“Loki!” cried Chi-weé, and almost she had no breath to cry with. “Loki—come back—see how it is Chi-weé, and here is your pony!”

And quickly as they had tried to climb up the bank the others came scrambling down again, and such a talking and explaining and crying aloud from the fat woman and the fat man who owned the burro. ​For a little everyone tried to speak at the same time, and no one could understand, but after a little it was clearer—and then it was Nah-tee who had the red cheeks of excitement and the eyes that sparkled like stars.

“Always I have thought my mother was there,” she cried, “and now I will see her. Oh, how I am happy again!”

“But we must go carefully,” said Loki. “Su-hú-bi is still there—and there is a reason why he does not want us up on the mesa.”

“But now we are so many,” said Moyo, “I am not afraid. Now we know that he is evil, and we will fight him if he comes near.”

“I will fight him,” cried the fat woman, and she made her hands into fists. “Never have I liked that man of little eyes, and now I know the reason why I have not liked him: not only are his eyes like a snake’s, but his heart, too, is like that.”

“Come,” said Mah-pee-ti, “if we are to reach the mesa for the big ceremony that Lampayo is to give, we must go quickly.”

“It is a surprise thing!” cried Loki. “But I wish very much the smell of those skins would go away from my clothes.”

​“And I have things—and things to show,” cried Chi-weé. “Almost I forgot—I wore the Butterfly Katchina in that dance—and not yet has come the time of the feast!”

Then they climbed on the horses—the fat woman and Nah-tee on the horse of Moyo because it was the largest, and Chi-weé and Moyo on Magic, and Loki took Mah-pee-ti on his pony with him; and the fat man rode on his burro, as always, and in a little they left him far behind.

“I will come,” he cried, “but this lazy creature will not go fast—ai-ee, how he is slow!” and after that they could only hear the “whack” of his hands as he slapped the burro, who did not so much as flick an ear in return. But they did not even listen for that—in the heart of each one was a song of happiness, and almost it seemed that the hoofs of the ponies kept time to that song.