Yahoya/Chapter 12

NLY a little while ago Northrup himself had said: "Love does not come like this, in a hurry!" And now he knew in a flash that then he had known nothing of it: that love comes as it wills, without man's bidding or consent. And, madness though it might be, it had come to him.

As his arms shut about her, hurting her in that first embrace, his heart was beating as wildly as hers. He wanted her; she belonged to him; and he was going to have her!

He wanted to get her away from here and to make her happy; he wanted to show her a world which would be like fairyland to her; he wanted to teach her his language, her own forgotten tongue; he wanted to mother her and father her and lover her. She was at once to him both an incomparable maiden and a little, frightened, hunted wild thing.

But while something deep within him, until now unawakened, talked to his soul of these things, his eyes and brain were keenly alive to what lay about him. The thing which he read in Strang's eyes was little different from the thing he saw in the eyes of Tiyo and Inaa. Amazement first, then incredulity which was still half stupefaction, then baffled rage and open threat.

Northrup's thought just then was that it was going to end with him and Yahoya going over the cliff together. And yet, in that first wild moment, it was only elation which beat through his heart. She lifted her head a little, looking straight up into his eyes. And there before them all, not to be robbed of what life seemed to be bringing them at its close, he kissed her.

"You love me, Saxnorthrup?" the girl whispered.

"I love you, Yahoya," he told her.

It was Inaa who took the first step forward. Yahoya, seeing him coming, slipped quickly from Northrup's arms. She alone had been in a position to plan for all things since she alone knew what Yahoya was going to do. She cried out clearly, sending her voice downward, calling:

"Will you hear Yahoya speak, my people? Will you bid Inaa stand back while Yahoya speaks?"

There came quick answer to her, many voices shouting:

"Yahoya! Listen to Yahoya!"

Down below, the two distinct factions now stood fully separated, grouped upon opposite sides of the fires. Clearly they were nearly equal in numbers; clearly then half of the men down there hungered to see Inaa and Tiyo fail in their wishes; while the other half clung to the old order and stood ready to oppose Strang's party in all things.

"There is our one chance," muttered Northrup, ready for whatever might happen; and he waited anxiously for Yahoya to speak.

Inaa, too, waited, and Tiyo and Strang, each for the moment uncertain. Yahoya, with a swift glance at them, turned again toward the expectant tribe.

"Among you," she cried, "are many young men and maidens. What man of you will stand aside and see another take his mana? What maiden of you will let Inaa or another tell her which lover she must love? You can look into Yahoya's heart and into Yellow Beard's heart and understand!

"But listen further! Many of you, drawn off there against the cliffs, have your hearts filled with hatred of Inaa and Tiyo! Over there stand you others, and your hearts are filled with hatred of the Man of Wisdom. Across the space between you your eyes run like the eyes of wolves hungering.

"The People of the Hidden Spring love their cornfields and their homes and their quiet lives of security. And yet, even now, they are about to spring upon one another to send many souls down to the Skeleton House, to tear themselves in two. Is it wise? Or has magic fallen upon you? Magic from the Man of Wisdom or from Inaa himself?

"If I wed Tiyo there will be war. If I wed the Man of Wisdom there will be war. What say you, my people, if Yahoya weds neither of them, but the man of her own choice, the great Yellow Beard? Then to-night you will not spill your blood and your brother's, but instead you will drink deep, feast full and sleep in peace! Now you can command Inaa to wed me to Yellow Beard and so, those of you who hate Tiyo can laugh at him; those of you who hate the Man of Wisdom can laugh at him!

"Aliksai! Listen. One way you shall have Yahoya's death and Yellow Beard's, for they will go down over the cliffs together; you will have Inaa's death and Tiyo's and Strang's and Muyingwa's, and the deaths of many young men, the strongest in the tribe, for they will fall! Another way and you will have peace. And tomorrow you can have your election if you like, keeping Inaa where he is or putting another in his place. What say you, my people?"

She drew back a little, not so far as to be lost from their sight, just so that she could stretch out her hand and slip it into Northrup's. Inaa began shouting; Tiyo's voice joined his angrily; Strang, stepping forward, called with them. And from below, out of a little silence, came a great shout of laughter!

"Let us drink, brothers!" cried a loud voice. "We were bewitched. The maid is right. Why should we fight when it is easier to drink and eat, to dance and sleep? Inaa had promised us a wedding; let him marry the maid to Yellow Beard!"

Now many shouted one thing, many another. But again and again a grumble of dissatisfaction was drowned in a shout of laughter. In the main the faction hating Tiyo was satisfied to see him thrust aside for another; those hating Strang were satisfied in his discomfiture.

The Hopi are at heart peace-loving people; a dance and a feast appeal to them far more than an orgy of blood. Here was at once a compromise and a huge joke on their head men. And perhaps many lovers below felt their rude sympathy for the lovers above.

Tiyo's twenty men, drawing closer now, looked at one another a trifle uncertainly. They began speaking in low tones and Northrup heard one of them laugh. The half-dozen men Strang had left in the shadows had been joined secretly by several others; they too had drawn closer and were speaking among themselves.

Looking to them Northrup saw a quick figure flit out of Yahoya's stone building and run toward them. It was the girl, Nayangap. She went hastily to the side of the young man, Muyingwa, and began speaking to him earnestly. And Muyingwa, nodding, came on until he stood close to Yahoya's side. Strang stared at him anxiously.

"Aliksai. Listen!" he cried loudly, until the din below grew still. "It is I, Muyingwa, who speak. Inaa has said that it is Tiyo who is the strongest of us, the swiftest runner. He lies! Even now will I run out across the desert with Tiyo, as many miles as he will and come back ahead of him! The men who are my men know this and have no love for liars! So they would not see Yahoya wedded to one of them. But with Yellow Beard it is different. Let Inaa wed them and we shall throw down our arms and feast. Then I will race with Tiyo, and the man who is strongest and swiftest will be your head captain. Then you will vote for Inaa or the other as your head priest. What say you? Is not Yahoya right? What man of us loves Tiyo or the Man of Wisdom better than his own life?"

While those bent upon strife murmured everywhere, those who had gone into the division half-heartedly or not at all, outnumbered them many to one. When, after that, Inaa sought to make himself heard, no one would listen; when Tiyo shouted, his words were lost to the ears of those standing close to him; when Strang shot out a sharp word and an evil glance at Muyingwa, it was met with a hard stare. Muyingwa had gone back to his mana, and the two of them were standing like Northrup and Yahoya, hand in hand.

It was perhaps Muyingwa's offer to race with Tiyo as much as anything which settled the matter. There are no runners in the world like the runners of the southwestern desert; they are men who can run an unbelievable number of miles out across blazing sands in the morning to dig in their fields and run back the same evening. With them running is at once a necessary thing, a part of their religious training, and a way of settling just such debates as the one that had arisen now.

They began sweeping up along the steep steps now, the men of the two factions mingling, jostling one another, each eager to be the first to come to the top. Northrup pressed Yahoya's hand mightily.

"You are a God-blessed wonder, Yahoya," he whispered. "We are going to pull through."

"You hurt my hand, Saxnorthrup!" she smiled up at him. "But—do it again!"

SOON they were in the center of a great ring, they with Inaa, Strang and Tiyo. Men were laughing openly everywhere. And their eyes, when they had finished with Yahoya and Northrup, had already measured Tiyo and were seeking to measure Muyingwa that they might lay their wagers upon the endurance run.

A man is not head priest of such a people as this for fifty years without learning something. There was not a cooler, craftier mind among them than Inaa's. He knew full well that in time of storm the reed that bends is better off than the stubborn tree. He frowned warningly at Tiyo, then, making his face over into its habitual mask, turned to Yahoya.

"Yahoya has been pleased," he said steadily, "to test her people. She has declared herself no true goddess but a mere maid to see if in our hearts' fear of the goddess were greater than love of Yahoya! Her will is the will of her people. The dawn has come and a wedding is promised. Let Yahoya and the great Bahana come forward."

Northrup, looking down quickly at Yahoya saw that her dimples had come back, that her eyes were shining softly, that a happy flush had run up into her cheeks. What wonderful thing was this? Had it been just a few hours since he had come here, dying of thirst? Or had it been years? Was he, Sax Northrup, about to be joined to this radiant girl in matrimony, none the less holy to him because of the heathen rites with which it was to be celebrated? Or was he dreaming the whole mad thing?

Slowly, his hand holding hers, he and Yahoya stepped forward. And then a sudden dread came upon him. If it had come to open fight it would have been one thing, a thing Northrup knew. But now that no knife-blade caught the early light he knew that none the less there were knives hungering for him, perhaps for Yahoya. He felt that all about him was menace, the more terrible because it was glossed over with smiles—a concealed, masked danger.

But these things he promptly forgot. Inaa, fighting hard for the mastery of himself, and getting it wonderfully, gave the people what they demanded, a wedding. Northrup, looking down at Yahoya's upturned face, saw a great, unfeigned gladness there. Her lips moved silently with Inaa's, as if she knew each word of the ceremony and were saying it within her heart.

Northrup did not know if he were doing a good or a bad thing in letting this go on; he only knew that he loved Yahoya and that she thought that she loved him. And there was no time for thought. Already he heard Inaa's words, saw Yahoya forming them silently.

"The Spider Woman and the Great Earth Woman, the goddess who weaves the colors of sunrise and sunset, the goddess to whom belongs the world, the god who makes green things grow and the God of Rain, the great gods and the small gods bless you, Yahoya and Yellow Beard! You are a mana and his woman. The woman's house is open to the man, to none but him. It is done!"

And between two long lines, instantly formed, of shouting, laughing men, Sax Northrup and his wife, given to him by her own will and by the head priest of the People of the Hidden Spring, passed into the stone house.