HE had been lying by the stone wall all day. And the sun was so hot that the blood beating in her ears sounded like the White Man’s fire-horse that had just pulled a freight train into the station, and was grunting and drinking down at the water tank a hundred yards away. It was getting all the water it wanted; why couldn’t she have all the water she wanted, too?
Today they had brought her the tomato can only half full. Such a little drink! And her mouth was so hot and dry! They were starving her to death—had been starving her for days and days. Oh, yes! she knew what they were doing. She knew why they were doing it, too. It was because she was in the way.
She was an old squaw. For weeks she had been half dead; she had lain for weeks whimpering and moaning in a corner of the camp on a heap of refuse and rotting rags, where they had first shoved her aside when she could no longer gather herself up on her withered limbs and go about to wait upon herself.
They had cursed her for her uselessness; and had let the children throw dirt at her, and take her scant share of food away and give it to the dogs. Then they had laughed at her when one of the older grandchildren had spat at her; and when she had striven to strike at the mocking, devilish face, and in her feebleness had failed, they had but laughed the louder while she shrieked out in her hatred of them all.
Her children, and her children’s children—her flesh and bone! They were young, and well, and strong; and she was old, feeble and dying. Old—old—old! Too old to work. Too old to do for herself any longer, they were tired of her; and now they had put her out of the wick-i-up to die alone there by the stone wall. She knew it—knew the truth; but what could she do?
She was only an old Paiute squaw.
At first they had given her half the amount of food which they allowed her before she had grown so feeble. Then it was but a quarter; and then again it was divided in half. Now—at the last—they were bringing her only water.
One day when she was faint and almost crazed from hunger, one of the boys (her own son’s son) had come with a meat bone and thrown it down before her; but when she reached out with trembling, fleshless hands to grasp it, he had jerked at the string to which it was tied, and snatched it away. Again and again he threw it toward her; again and again she tried to be quick enough to close her fingers upon it before he could jerk it from her. Then (when, at last, he was tired of the play) he had flung it only an arm’s length beyond her reach, and had run laughing down to the railroad to beg nickels from the passengers on the train. When he had gone a dog came and dropped down beside her, and gnawed the bone where it lay. She had crawled out into the sunshine that day, and lay huddled in a heap close to the door-flap at the wick-i-up entrance. The warm sunlight at first felt good to her chilled blood, and she had lain there long; but finally when she would have dragged her feeble body within again, a young squaw (the one who had mated with the firstborn son, and was now ruler of the camp) had thrust her back with her foot, and said that her whining and crying were making the Great Spirit angry; and that henceforth she must stay outside the camp, for a punishment.
Ah, she knew! She knew! They could not deceive her. It was not the Great Spirit that had put her out, but her own flesh and blood. How she hated them all! If she could only be young again she would have them put to death, as she herself had had others put to death when there were many to do her bidding. But she was old; and she must lie outside, away from those who had put her there to starve, while in the gray dusk they gathered around the campfire and ate, and laughed, and forgot her. She wished the cool, dark night might last longer, with the sage-scented winds from the plain blowing over her. But morning would come with a blood-red sun shining through the summer haze, and she would have to lie there under the furnace heat through all the long daylight hours, with only a few swallows of water brought to her in the tomato can to quench her intolerable thirst.
They were slowly starving her to death just because she was old. They hated squaws when they got old. They did not tell her so; but she knew. She, too, had hated them once. That was long ago. Long, long ago; when she was young, and strong, and swift.
She was straight then and good to look at. All of the young men of her tribe had striven for her; and two had fought long—had fought wildly and wickedly. That was when the White Man had first come into the country of her people, and they had fought with knives they had taken from the Whites. Knives long, and shining, and sharp. They had fought and slashed, and cut each other till the hard ground was red and slippery where they stood. Then—still fighting—they had fallen down, down; and where they fell, they died. Died for her—a squaw! Well, what of it, now? Tomorrow she, too, would die. She whom they, and others, had loved.
Once, long ago—long before the time when she had become Wi-o-chee’s wife—at the Fort on the other side of the mountain, where the morning sun comes first, there had been a White Man whose eyes were the blue of the soldier-blue he wore; and whose mustache was yellow like the gold he wore on his shoulders.
He, too, was young, and straight, and strong; and one day he had caught her in his arms and held her while he kissed her on mouth and eyes, and under her little round chin. And when she had broken away from him and had run—run fast as the deer runs—he had called after her: “Josie! Josie! Come back!” But she had run the faster till, by and by, when he had ceased calling, she had stolen back and had thrown a handful of grass at him as he sat, with bowed head, on the doorstep of the officers’ quarters; his white fingers pressed tight over his eyelids. Then when he had looked up she had gone shyly to him, and put her hand in his. And when he stood up, looking eagerly in her eyes, she had thrown her head back, where she let it lay against his arm, and laughed, showing the snow-white line of her teeth, till he was dazzled by what he saw and hid the whiteness that gleamed between her lips by the gold that swept across his own.
That was long ago. Not yesterday, nor last week, nor last month; but so long ago that it did not even awaken in her an interest in remembering how he had taught her English words to say to him, and laughed with her when she said them so badly.
She did not care about it, at all, now. She only wanted a drink of water; and her children would not give her what she craved.
Always, she had been brave. She had feared nothing—nothing. She could ride faster, run farther, dare more than other young squaws of the tribe. She had been stronger and suppler. Yet today she was dying here by the stone wall—put out of the camp by her children’s children to die.
She would die tomorrow; or next day, at latest. Perhaps tonight. She had thought she was to die last night when the lean coyote came and stood off from her, and watched with hungry eyes. All night he watched. Going away, and coming back. Coming and going all night. All night his little bright eyes shone like stars. And the stars, too, watched her there dying for water and meat, but they handed nothing down to her from the cool sky.
Oh, for strength again! For life, and to be young! But she was old and weak. She would die; and when she was dead they would take her in her rags, and—winding the shred of a gray blanket about her (the blanket on which she lay)—they would tie it tightly at her head and at her feet; and so she would be made ready for her last journey.
Dragging her to a waiting pony she would be laid across the saddle, face down. To the stirrups, which would be tied together beneath the horse that they might not swing, her head and feet would be fastened—her head at one stirrup, her feet at the other.
Then they would lead the pony off through the greasewood. Along the stony trail across the upland to the foothills the little buckskin pony would pick his way, stumbling on the rocks while his burden would slip and shake about, lying across the saddle. Then they would lay her in a shallow place, and heaping earth and gravel over her, would come away. That was the way they had done with her mother, with Wi-o-chee, and the son who had died.
Tomorrow—yes, tomorrow—they would take her to the foothills. Perhaps the coyote would go there tomorrow night; would go there, and dig.
He had come now, and stood watching her from the shelter of the sagebrush. He was afraid to come nearer—now. She was too weak to move even a finger today, yet he was afraid. He would not come close till she was dead. He knew.
Once he walked a few steps toward her, watching her all the while with his little cruel eyes. Then he turned and trotted back into the sagebrush. He knew. Not yet.
All day the sun had lain in heavy heat on the tangle of vile rags by the stone wall. All day the magpie, hopping along the wall, watched with head bent sidewise at the rags that only moved with the faint breathing of the body beneath. All day long two buzzards far up in the still air swung slowly in great circling sweeps. All day, from early dawn till dusk, a brown hand—skinny and foully dirty—clutched the tomato can; but the can today had been left empty. Forgotten.
When it grew dark and a big, bright star glowed in the West, the coyote came out of the shadows of the sagebrush and stood looking at the tangled rags by the stone wall.
Only a moment he stood there. He threw up his head, and his voice went out in a chilling call to his mate. Then with lifted lip he walked quickly forward. He was no longer afraid.
