KEESH, THE SON OF KEESH
"Thus will I give six blankets, warm and double; six files, large and
hard; six Hudson Bay knives, keen-edged and long; two canoes, the work
of Mogum, The Maker of Things; ten dogs, heavy-shouldered and strong
in the harness; and three guns--the trigger of one be broken, but it
is a good gun and can doubtless be mended."
Keesh paused and swept his eyes over the circle of intent faces. It
was the time of the Great Fishing, and he was bidding to Gnob for
Su-Su his daughter. The place was the St. George Mission by the Yukon,
and the tribes had gathered for many a hundred miles. From north,
south, east, and west they had come, even from Tozikakat and far
Tana-naw.
"And further, O Gnob, thou art chief of the Tana-naw; and I, Keesh,
the son of Keesh, am chief of the Thlunget. Wherefore, when my seed
springs from the loins of thy daughter, there shall be a friendship
between the tribes, a great friendship, and Tana-naw and Thlunget
shall be brothers of the blood in the time to come. What I have said
I will do, that will I do. And how is it with you, O Gnob, in this
matter?"
Gnob nodded his head gravely, his gnarled and age-twisted face
inscrutably masking the soul that dwelt behind. His narrow eyes
burned like twin coals through their narrow slits, as he piped in a
high-cracked voice, "But that is not all."
"What more?" Keesh demanded. "Have I not offered full measure? Was
there ever yet a Tana-naw maiden who fetched so great a price? Then
name her!"
An open snicker passed round the circle, and Keesh knew that he stood
in shame before these people.
"Nay, nay, good Keesh, thou dost not understand." Gnob made a soft,
stroking gesture. "The price is fair. It is a good price. Nor do I
question the broken trigger. But that is not all. What of the man?"
"Ay, what of the man?" the circle snarled.
"It is said," Gnob's shrill voice piped, "it is said that Keesh does
not walk in the way of his fathers. It is said that he has wandered
into the dark, after strange gods, and that he is become afraid."
The face of Keesh went dark. "It is a lie!" he thundered. "Keesh is
afraid of no man!"
"It is said," old Gnob piped on, "that he has harkened to the speech
of the white man up at the Big House, and that he bends head to the
white man's god, and, moreover, that blood is displeasing to the white
man's god."
Keesh dropped his eyes, and his hands clenched passionately. The
savage circle laughed derisively, and in the ear of Gnob whispered
Madwan, the shaman, high-priest of the tribe and maker of medicine.
The shaman poked among the shadows on the rim of the firelight and
roused up a slender young boy, whom he brought face to face with
Keesh; and in the hand of Keesh he thrust a knife.
Gnob leaned forward. "Keesh! O Keesh! Darest thou to kill a man?
Behold! This be Kitz-noo, a slave. Strike, O Keesh, strike with the
strength of thy arm!"
The boy trembled and waited the stroke. Keesh looked at him, and
thoughts of Mr. Brown's higher morality floated through his mind, and
strong upon him was a vision of the leaping flames of Mr. Brown's
particular brand of hell-fire. The knife fell to the ground, and the
boy sighed and went out beyond the firelight with shaking knees. At
the feet of Gnob sprawled a wolf-dog, which bared its gleaming teeth
and prepared to spring after the boy. But the shaman ground his foot
into the brute's body, and so doing, gave Gnob an idea.
"And then, O Keesh, what wouldst thou do, should a man do this thing
to you?"--as he spoke, Gnob held a ribbon of salmon to White Fang, and
when the animal attempted to take it, smote him sharply on the nose
with a stick. "And afterward, O Keesh, wouldst thou do thus?"--White
Fang was cringing back on his belly and fawning to the hand of Gnob.
"Listen!"--leaning on the arm of Madwan, Gnob had risen to his feet.
"I am very old, and because I am very old I will tell thee things.
Thy father, Keesh, was a mighty man. And he did love the song of the
bowstring in battle, and these eyes have beheld him cast a spear till
the head stood out beyond a man's body. But thou art unlike. Since
thou left the Raven to worship the Wolf, thou art become afraid of
blood, and thou makest thy people afraid. This is not good. For
behold, when I was a boy, even as Kitz-noo there, there was no white
man in all the land. But they came, one by one, these white men, till
now they are many. And they are a restless breed, never content to
rest by the fire with a full belly and let the morrow bring its own
meat. A curse was laid upon them, it would seem, and they must work it
out in toil and hardship."
Keesh was startled. A recollection of a hazy story told by Mr. Brown
of one Adam, of old time, came to him, and it seemed that Mr. Brown
had spoken true.
"So they lay hands upon all they behold, these white men, and they go
everywhere and behold all things. And ever do more follow in their
steps, so that if nothing be done they will come to possess all the
land and there will be no room for the tribes of the Raven. Wherefore
it is meet that we fight with them till none are left. Then will
we hold the passes and the land, and perhaps our children and our
children's children shall flourish and grow fat. There is a great
struggle to come, when Wolf and Raven shall grapple; but Keesh will
not fight, nor will he let his people fight. So it is not well that he
should take to him my daughter. Thus have I spoken, I, Gnob, chief of
the Tana-naw."
"But the white men are good and great," Keesh made answer. "The white
men have taught us many things. The white men have given us blankets
and knives and guns, such as we have never made and never could make.
I remember in what manner we lived before they came. I was unborn
then, but I have it from my father. When we went on the hunt we
must creep so close to the moose that a spear-cast would cover the
distance. To-day we use the white man's rifle, and farther away than
can a child's cry be heard. We ate fish and meat and berries--there
was nothing else to eat--and we ate without salt. How many be there
among you who care to go back to the fish and meat without salt?"
It would have sunk home, had not Madwan leaped to his feet ere silence
could come. "And first a question to thee, Keesh. The white man up at
the Big House tells you that it is wrong to kill. Yet do we not know
that the white men kill? Have we forgotten the great fight on the
Koyokuk? or the great fight at Nuklukyeto, where three white men
killed twenty of the Tozikakats? Do you think we no longer remember
the three men of the Tana-naw that the white man Macklewrath killed?
Tell me, O Keesh, why does the Shaman Brown teach you that it is wrong
to fight, when all his brothers fight?"
"Nay, nay, there is no need to answer," Gnob piped, while Keesh
struggled with the paradox. "It is very simple. The Good Man Brown
would hold the Raven tight whilst his brothers pluck the feathers." He
raised his voice. "But so long as there is one Tana-naw to strike
a blow, or one maiden to bear a man-child, the Raven shall not be
plucked!"
Gnob turned to a husky young man across the fire. "And what sayest
thou, Makamuk, who art brother to Su-Su?"
Makamuk came to his feet. A long face-scar lifted his upper lip into
a perpetual grin which belied the glowing ferocity of his eyes.
"This day," he began with cunning irrelevance, "I came by the Trader
Macklewrath's cabin. And in the door I saw a child laughing at the
sun. And the child looked at me with the Trader Macklewrath's eyes,
and it was frightened. The mother ran to it and quieted it. The mother
was Ziska, the Thlunget woman."
A snarl of rage rose up and drowned his voice, which he stilled by
turning dramatically upon Keesh with outstretched arm and accusing
finger.
"So? You give your women away, you Thlunget, and come to the Tana-naw
for more? But we have need of our women, Keesh; for we must breed men,
many men, against the day when the Raven grapples with the Wolf."
Through the storm of applause, Gnob's voice shrilled clear. "And thou,
Nossabok, who art her favorite brother?"
The young fellow was slender and graceful, with the strong aquiline
nose and high brows of his type; but from some nervous affliction the
lid of one eye drooped at odd times in a suggestive wink. Even as he
arose it so drooped and rested a moment against his cheek. But it was
not greeted with the accustomed laughter. Every face was grave. "I,
too, passed by the Trader Macklewrath's cabin," he rippled in soft,
girlish tones, wherein there was much of youth and much of his sister.
"And I saw Indians with the sweat running into their eyes and their
knees shaking with weariness--I say, I saw Indians groaning under the
logs for the store which the Trader Macklewrath is to build. And with
my eyes I saw them chopping wood to keep the Shaman Brown's Big House
warm through the frost of the long nights. This be squaw work. Never
shall the Tana-naw do the like. We shall be blood brothers to men, not
squaws; and the Thlunget be squaws."
A deep silence fell, and all eyes centred on Keesh. He looked about
him carefully, deliberately, full into the face of each grown man.
"So," he said passionlessly. And "So," he repeated. Then turned on his
heel without further word and passed out into the darkness.
Wading among sprawling babies and bristling wolf-dogs, he threaded
the great camp, and on its outskirts came upon a woman at work by the
light of a fire. With strings of bark stripped from the long roots of
creeping vines, she was braiding rope for the Fishing. For some time,
without speech, he watched her deft hands bringing law and order out
of the unruly mass of curling fibres. She was good to look upon,
swaying there to her task, strong-limbed, deep-chested, and with hips
made for motherhood. And the bronze of her face was golden in the
flickering light, her hair blue-black, her eyes jet.
"O Su-Su," he spoke finally, "thou hast looked upon me kindly in the
days that have gone and in the days yet young--"
"I looked kindly upon thee for that thou wert chief of the Thlunget,"
she answered quickly, "and because thou wert big and strong."
"Ay--"
"But that was in the old days of the Fishing," she hastened to add,
"before the Shaman Brown came and taught thee ill things and led thy
feet on strange trails."
"But I would tell thee the--"
She held up one hand in a gesture which reminded him of her father.
"Nay, I know already the speech that stirs in thy throat, O Keesh, and
I make answer now. It so happeneth that the fish of the water and the
beasts of the forest bring forth after their kind. And this is good.
Likewise it happeneth to women. It is for them to bring forth their
kind, and even the maiden, while she is yet a maiden, feels the pang
of the birth, and the pain of the breast, and the small hands at the
neck. And when such feeling is strong, then does each maiden look
about her with secret eyes for the man--for the man who shall be fit
to father her kind. So have I felt. So did I feel when I looked upon
thee and found thee big and strong, a hunter and fighter of beasts and
men, well able to win meat when I should eat for two, well able to
keep danger afar off when my helplessness drew nigh. But that was
before the day the Shaman Brown came into the land and taught thee--"
"But it is not right, Su-Su. I have it on good word--"
"It is not right to kill. I know what thou wouldst say. Then breed
thou after thy kind, the kind that does not kill; but come not on such
quest among the Tana-naw. For it is said in the time to come, that
the Raven shall grapple with the Wolf. I do not know, for this be the
affair of men; but I do know that it is for me to bring forth men
against that time."
"Su-Su," Keesh broke in, "thou must hear me--"
"A _man_ would beat me with a stick and make me hear," she sneered.
"But thou ... here!" She thrust a bunch of bark into his hand. "I
cannot give thee myself, but this, yes. It looks fittest in thy hands.
It is squaw work, so braid away."
He flung it from him, the angry blood pounding a muddy path under his
bronze.
"One thing more," she went on. "There be an old custom which thy
father and mine were not strangers to. When a man falls in battle, his
scalp is carried away in token. Very good. But thou, who have forsworn
the Raven, must do more. Thou must bring me, not scalps, but heads,
two heads, and then will I give thee, not bark, but a brave-beaded
belt, and sheath, and long Russian knife. Then will I look kindly upon
thee once again, and all will be well."
"So," the man pondered. "So." Then he turned and passed out through
the light.
"Nay, O Keesh!" she called after him. "Not two heads, but three at
least!"
* * * * *
But Keesh remained true to his conversion, lived uprightly, and made
his tribespeople obey the gospel as propounded by the Rev. Jackson
Brown. Through all the time of the Fishing he gave no heed to the
Tana-naw, nor took notice of the sly things which were said, nor of
the laughter of the women of the many tribes. After the Fishing, Gnob
and his people, with great store of salmon, sun-dried and smoke-cured,
departed for the Hunting on the head reaches of the Tana-naw. Keesh
watched them go, but did not fail in his attendance at Mission
service, where he prayed regularly and led the singing with his deep
bass voice.
The Rev. Jackson Brown delighted in that deep bass voice, and because
of his sterling qualities deemed him the most promising convert.
Macklewrath doubted this. He did not believe in the efficacy of the
conversion of the heathen, and he was not slow in speaking his mind.
But Mr. Brown was a large man, in his way, and he argued it out with
such convincingness, all of one long fall night, that the trader,
driven from position after position, finally announced in desperation,
"Knock out my brains with apples, Brown, if I don't become a convert
myself, if Keesh holds fast, true blue, for two years!" Mr. Brown
never lost an opportunity, so he clinched the matter on the spot
with a virile hand-grip, and thenceforth the conduct of Keesh was to
determine the ultimate abiding-place of Macklewrath's soul.
But there came news one day, after the winter's rime had settled down
over the land sufficiently for travel. A Tana-naw man arrived at the
St. George Mission in quest of ammunition and bringing information
that Su-Su had set eyes on Nee-Koo, a nervy young hunter who had bid
brilliantly for her by old Gnob's fire. It was at about this time that
the Rev. Jackson Brown came upon Keesh by the wood-trail which leads
down to the river. Keesh had his best dogs in the harness, and shoved
under the sled-lashings was his largest and finest pair of snow-shoes.
"Where goest thou, O Keesh? Hunting?" Mr. Brown asked, falling into
the Indian manner.
Keesh looked him steadily in the eyes for a full minute, then started
up his dogs. Then again, turning his deliberate gaze upon the
missionary, he answered, "No; I go to hell."
* * * * *
In an open space, striving to burrow into the snow as though for
shelter from the appalling desolateness, huddled three dreary lodges.
Ringed all about, a dozen paces away, was the sombre forest. Overhead
there was no keen, blue sky of naked space, but a vague, misty
curtain, pregnant with snow, which had drawn between. There was no
wind, no sound, nothing but the snow and silence. Nor was there even
the general stir of life about the camp; for the hunting party had run
upon the flank of the caribou herd and the kill had been large. Thus,
after the period of fasting had come the plenitude of feasting, and
thus, in broad daylight, they slept heavily under their roofs of
moosehide.
By a fire, before one of the lodges, five pairs of snow-shoes stood
on end in their element, and by the fire sat Su-Su. The hood of her
squirrel-skin parka was about her hair, and well drawn up around her
throat; but her hands were unmittened and nimbly at work with needle
and sinew, completing the last fantastic design on a belt of leather
faced with bright scarlet cloth. A dog, somewhere at the rear of one
of the lodges, raised a short, sharp bark, then ceased as abruptly as
it had begun. Once, her father, in the lodge at her back, gurgled and
grunted in his sleep. "Bad dreams," she smiled to herself. "He grows
old, and that last joint was too much."
She placed the last bead, knotted the sinew, and replenished the fire.
Then, after gazing long into the flames, she lifted her head to the
harsh _crunch-crunch_ of a moccasined foot against the flinty snow
granules. Keesh was at her side, bending slightly forward to a load
which he bore upon his back. This was wrapped loosely in a soft-tanned
moosehide, and he dropped it carelessly into the snow and sat down.
They looked at each other long and without speech.
"It is a far fetch, O Keesh," she said at last, "a far fetch from St.
George Mission by the Yukon."
"Ay," he made answer, absently, his eyes fixed keenly upon the belt
and taking note of its girth. "But where is the knife?" he demanded.
"Here." She drew it from inside her parka and flashed its naked length
in the firelight. "It is a good knife."
"Give it me!" he commanded.
"Nay, O Keesh," she laughed. "It may be that thou wast not born to
wear it."
"Give it me!" he reiterated, without change of tone. "I was so born."
But her eyes, glancing coquettishly past him to the moosehide, saw the
snow about it slowly reddening. "It is blood, Keesh?" she asked.
"Ay, it is blood. But give me the belt and the long Russian knife."
She felt suddenly afraid, but thrilled when he took the belt roughly
from her, thrilled to the roughness. She looked at him softly, and was
aware of a pain at the breast and of small hands clutching her throat.
"It was made for a smaller man," he remarked grimly, drawing in his
abdomen and clasping the buckle at the first hole.
Su-Su smiled, and her eyes were yet softer. Again she felt the soft
hands at her throat. He was good to look upon, and the belt was indeed
small, made for a smaller man; but what did it matter? She could make
many belts.
"But the blood?" she asked, urged on by a hope new-born and growing.
"The blood, Keesh? Is it ... are they ... heads?"
"Ay."
"They must be very fresh, else would the blood be frozen."
"Ay, it is not cold, and they be fresh, quite fresh."
"Oh, Keesh!" Her face was warm and bright. "And for me?"
"Ay; for thee."
He took hold of a corner of the hide, flirted it open, and rolled the
heads out before her.
"Three," he whispered savagely; "nay, four at least."
But she sat transfixed. There they lay--the soft-featured Nee-Koo; the
gnarled old face of Gnob; Makamuk, grinning at her with his lifted
upper lip; and lastly, Nossabok, his eyelid, up to its old trick,
drooped on his girlish cheek in a suggestive wink. There they lay, the
firelight flashing upon and playing over them, and from each of them a
widening circle dyed the snow to scarlet.
Thawed by the fire, the white crust gave way beneath the head of Gnob,
which rolled over like a thing alive, spun around, and came to rest at
her feet. But she did not move. Keesh, too, sat motionless, his eyes
unblinking, centred steadfastly upon her.
Once, in the forest, an overburdened pine dropped its load of snow,
and the echoes reverberated hollowly down the gorge; but neither
stirred. The short day had been waning fast, and darkness was wrapping
round the camp when White Fang trotted up toward the fire. He paused
to reconnoitre, but not being driven back, came closer. His nose shot
swiftly to the side, nostrils a-tremble and bristles rising along the
spine; and straight and true, he followed the sudden scent to his
master's head. He sniffed it gingerly at first and licked the forehead
with his red lolling tongue. Then he sat abruptly down, pointed his
nose up at the first faint star, and raised the long wolf-howl.
This brought Su-Su to herself. She glanced across at Keesh, who had
unsheathed the Russian knife and was watching her intently. His face
was firm and set, and in it she read the law. Slipping back the hood
of her parka, she bared her neck and rose to her feet There she paused
and took a long look about her, at the rimming forest, at the faint
stars in the sky, at the camp, at the snow-shoes in the snow--a last
long comprehensive look at life. A light breeze stirred her hair from
the side, and for the space of one deep breath she turned her head and
followed it around until she met it full-faced.
Then she thought of her children, ever to be unborn, and she walked
over to Keesh and said, "I am ready."
