nut bushes,
To land at the mark of the sky flower,
A fair thing to shelter death.

I set down my heaped basket of furry nuts,
I gathered my robe to my knees and raced swiftly,
I made the leap to which I challenged her,
Before her and all of the wondering maidens.

She followed my footsteps like a rift of white light.
She rose high in the air over the sweet nut bushes,
But she had not my strength, not my purpose.
My leap carried me far over the danger;
But as I turned quickly to watch her
I saw her touch earth in smiling confidence,
At the mark of the waving sky flower.

When she tore away, her eyes wide in danger,
Dragging her robe from the clinging thicket,
With greedy eyed, death hungry heart
I watched her proud face.

The Great Spirit had not pitied me,
If the curved death serpent had struck at her,
His awful fangs had missed her soft body.
O Medicine Man, make me magic for the fire bird,
Ease my spirit of the snaring water flower.

Many suns I waited in hunger and spirit searching;
Far and alone I wandered over the meadows,
Beside the white sand shore of the sea water.

One day I lost from my necklace
A carved piece of rare blue shell,
A beautiful heaven tinted shell, a treasure,
Got from traders from the Islands of the seas
Far to the south of us—across vast waters;
A big shell so precious among us that only one
Cost us the weaving of fifty blankets;
The greatest wealth known to our people.

Slipping unseen from all the others,
I went alone through a trail of deep forest
To the back of a far secret cavern I knew,
Where lay hidden my precious blue shell,
And I cut one small piece from it,
For the mending of my necklace.
When I came back to the sun, O Medicine Man,
And through the forest followed my trail,
I heard the rushing thunder footsteps
And the death growl of Black Bear.

I looked, and I saw at the welcoming cavern mouth,
Hurrying in from the forest, the bloody killer,
Mother black bear, gaunt and hard chased,
With far hanging tongue and foam dripping jaws;
And behind her, panting and whimpering,
Her pair of travel worn hungry little children.

Some far tribe had driven her from her home,
And with her crying small ones following
She was seeking shelter in my treasure lodge.

I watched her turn and forbid her children to enter;
Alone, bravely to the inner recesses she went.
Her nose must have told her of my recent body,
But she could lead her sleepy cubs no farther,
For the death weariness was upon all of them.

So she came back to the cave's homing mouth,
Drove her panting cubs to the farthest wall,
And making fierce boastful war talk,
There she claimed the homing rights of the wild.

I went back to where our women were working
And I began the Brave's task of drilling my shell.
Coüy-oüy came and lay beside me, watching.
Her tribes had no knowledge
Of such rare precious ornaments.
She greatly desired to possess one
For her most precious bracelet.

When we were alone, as I worked
I told her how to find my cavern
And where the shell was hidden on a high ledge.

Her heart knew no fear;
Her eyes shone with gladness
When I told her my great secret of blue treasure
And that, if she would go alone,
She might take for herself one piece.
The one I was drilling so carefully I must use
For the mending of my rarest necklace.

When I thought of the dripping jaws
Of the killer, ravenous, tormented to frenzy,
And looked at the smoothness of her body,
I relented; I knew mercy.
It was in my softened heart
To say that the hunters must go with her;
But before my lips of compassion
Could speak the words my heart said,
With the joy light shining on her face,
She told me in happy confidence:
"I will take but one small piece
To ornament my richest bracelet,
And I will polish it smooth even as you do,
And Mountain Lion shall carve it for me."

O Medicine Man, look in mercy upon me!
Darest say she drove not her own stake,
Lighted her torture fire with fearless hands?

Darest say she knew not that Mountain Lion
Would now make her our Chieftainess?
Darest say the buzzing of a swarm of maidens
Had not told her many suns past
That Mountain Lion was my man,
That he had danced the Mating Dance
Of the Mandanas with me,
Before the assembly in the Council House
On the night of her coming among us?

All that night my eyes surrounded her wigwam.
With first dawn ray she came slipping forth
And darted down the veiled trail
That led through the deep forest.

Well had I marked the path
That ran to the cave's mouth.
When she had gone I closed the slender opening
Through which I had unceasingly watched
The moon's long journey for her,
And for the first time in many pitiless suns
I fell into the deep visionless sleep
Of the body tired past endurance.

It was near evening when my Mother wakened me.
She told me, her eyes burning deep into mine,
How hunters in the forest had found Coüy-oüy
Fleeing like a doe before the furious black killer.

When she fell, her utmost strength exhausted,
Over her raged the foaming black death.
Her beautiful breast and arms
Were forever shorn of their smoothness,
But she lived, and her hateful face of allurement
Her trouble-maker face, was untouched.

I knew what my Mother knew
When she turned from my doorway.
Medicine Man, the killer had not struck
To the depth where life tented.
She had not sent my enemy to the Great Spirit.
She had only moved to compassion
The heart in the breast of Mountain Lion,
So that alone in his canoe he speared the rare fish,
Alone on the mountains he sought the tender bird,
Even the bright flower, the red leaf,
To lay at her doorway—love's offering.

Well I knew that when she was healed
He would stand tall and straight before her,
And in his fierce pleading eyes
She would find the great understanding.
Then, Medicine Man, despair settled in my heart;
I shrivelled like the ungathered wild plum,
I burned with a fierce, hot inward fire.

The day came when Coüy-oüy stood forth
Whitely robed in shining wonder,
Untouched in her courage and her beauty
Save that she hid her arms with deep fringes.

In bitterness of spirit I turned from her,
I followed the long lonely trail
Through the fringed blue flower meadows.
I lay beside the small still waters of the flat lands,
And I talked to my sister, the tall blue Heron
While she hunted food among the water flowers;
And I told the wise old Heron
For the easement of my torture,
I told her, O Medicine Man,
This same tale I tell you.

And then, Medicine Man,
The Heron gave me a sure sign.

She stalked to where a great white flower
Was resting in serene beauty,
Like a sheaf of fallen moons upon the water,
And from beneath the safety of its shelter
She picked out my little frog brother so easily.

She tossed him clear and high in the air,
And head first he shot down her long red gullet.
Then she looked at me