XIV
TIYO and Muyingwa showed an equal eagerness to be off. They stood side by side, stripped, the sun already beating hot upon their naked bodies. As he looked down, Northrup marveled how the desert had made her children into what they must be to wrest nourishment and draw life from her barren breasts.
The men were alike, as he looked upon them from the back. Their shoulders were not wide, though they were tall men, both of them. Their bodies were slender, almost reed-like in smooth symmetry and pliant toughness. There was no hint of a useless ounce of flesh, nothing but hard muscle.
But while bigness of body was nowhere evident in the torsos, which were none the less magnificent, the hips were thicker than the hips of white men, the thighs bulged out with endurance in every knotted sinew; the calves were the swelling, powerful calves of Marathon men.
The desert Indian in his heart is a born gambler, his love for hazard no whit less than the Mongolian's. Already were the onlookers caught in a fever of excitement as they cried out for their favorites and eagerly sought takers for their wagers. From the voices coming up to him Northrup knew that one man was seeking to bet his whole year's yield of corn that Tiyo would come in the victor; that another staked many gold cups on Muyingwa; that even the women were wagering personal ornaments.
"Where will they run?" he asked of Yahoya.
"Yonder," she pointed, "to the foot of that peak, without water on the way. There grow red flowers that are found nowhere else. The one who brings the first flower back wins. It is the custom."
Northrup judged that to the base of the cliff it was at the least fifteen miles. A race of thirty miles through the hot sun, and without water!
"Who will win?"
She shook her head thoughtfully.
"It lies with the gods, Saxnorthrup. There are in the world no two runners like them since Chiwakala is dead. No man could beat them—except you, Saxnorthrup!" she ended loyally.
"Good Lord!" grunted Northrup. "I'd shrivel up in about ten minutes!" But he spoke in English.
Inaa made his way through the throng which drew back for him. From a cup in his hand he sprinkled water upon both men.
"The gods watch you, my sons," he said loudly. "Run!"
They broke away from the throng which watched them silently and went down the gentle slope from the cañon mouth at a trot, their elbows rubbing. Northrup noted how Tiyo held his arms drawn up a little so that the relaxed hands were close to his stomach; how Muyingwa ran with his arms at his sides, the hands dangling.
And in their action he saw no other difference. There was the same free stride, the same way of bending the body slightly forward with the head held up a little, the same easy play of muscles and rhythmic swing.
"If I had to bet on either of them," was his thought, "I'd toss a coin for it."
And then, mindful of what the result of the race might mean to Yahoya and to him, he cried sharply:
"Go to it, Muyingwa! I'm backing you!"
Like two great, gaunt greyhounds, Tiyo and Muyingwa were already slipping out into the desert, their bare feet seeming scarcely to touch the loose sand. Each had hit his stride, and Northrup saw that now Muyingwa was setting the pace, forging a step ahead, and that Tiyo seemed quite content to drop the step behind. He frowned as he asked of Yahoya—
"Which man has won the most races in his life?"
And she answered—
"Tiyo."
Steadily, each keeping to his stride, the two passed out into the gray expanse, Muyingwa increasing the distance lying between him and his rival, Tiyo never seeming to see Muyingwa. Now, more than ever before, did the desert seem like a mighty ocean, with these men, two bold swimmers, striking straight out into it, and the thought must arise in the mind of a white man who watched them: "Is their strength so mighty a thing that it will not forsake them before they can get back?"
But they would be back soon enough, and then there would be a settling of scores.
Northrup drew his eyes away from the two forms growing smaller in the distance, beginning to blend into the monotone of desert, and stared down at the throng below him. He found Strang in a center of a group of silent, attentive men. Beyond him was Inaa, the priest, also with his group around him.
"They are like a crowd of schoolboys," thought Northrup. "Ready to break off in the middle of a fight to watch a race; ready to get into mischief again the next minute."
"Yahoya," he said gently, "do you know what it will mean for us if Tiyo wins this race?"
"Yes." She spoke quite steadily, slipping her hand into his, and smiling a little. "But we are not afraid to die, you and I, Saxnorthrup."
"So it would be death then?"
"For you," she told him, "it would be a laborer's work down in the mines. For me it would mean bride to Tiyo, or my own knife in my heart. We would not wait, Saxnorthrup, you and I."
"What would we do?" he asked curiously, wondering at the girl's calmness.
"When we saw Tiyo running home before Muyingwa we would leap out to meet him, Saxnorthrup. Hand in hand, as lovers should."
"You love me like that, Yahoya?"
She pressed his hand hard in her own.
"That is the only way Yahoya knows how to love, my husband. But I am praying to Haruing Wuhti and Kokang Wuhti that it may be Muyingwa who races home first."
"In either case there is going to be trouble," he said thoughtfully. "Those men down there are not to be cheated of their fight. While they are watching the race, should we try to leave by the way which I came?"
"Where you go I go with you," she answered. "But if they wished they could come up with us out in the desert, and there are no cliffs out there for us to leap from, Saxnorthrup."
MEN were already coming up from the cañon, seeking the heights from which they might watch the race until Tiyo and Muyingwa were lost to even their piercing eyes. In a little the level space would be crowded.
"Let us go back into the house, Yahoya," suggested Northrup. "There we can be alone for a little. And there we can have certain men come presently whom we shall want to talk with."
Before they could gain the wide doorway Northrup saw many hard, frowning eyes turned upon him, and knew that a little while ago these same eyes had looked on laughingly at his wedding with Yahoya. The Indians had enjoyed the moment, had found perhaps a pleasure in piquing at once Strang and Tiyo and Inaa, had yielded to the impulse of the moment and Yahoya's influence over them. But now stood out their eternal hatred of a white man.
Quickly the level space about the pool and the spires of rock uplifted into the air were covered with men seeking to find the two little moving dots in the wide sweep of sand. Early among them came the girl, Nayangap. With no glance at Northrup now, stooping swiftly, she caught up the hem of Yahoya's gown and lifted it to her lips.
"Yahoya," she said softly, her voice troubled, as were her eyes, "goddess or maid, it is all the same to the heart of Nayangap. In her heart Nayangap loves you and worships."
"You are a good girl," said Yahoya, with a little touch of her old air of a young queen. "Look. I give you this."
She caught up one of the many jeweled cups from the floor. Nayangap shook her head, saying quickly:
"Nayangap does not come for presents. She brings you word from Muyingwa."
Northrup looked at the girl eagerly. For the first time now, Nayangap looked at him. And it was to him rather than to Yahoya that she spoke.
"Muyingwa will win the race, because he is the better man, and because the gods love him best! Then his followers—and they are many—will name him head captain of the young men, in Tiyo's place. Then, too, the good men who are fair in their hearts will name him head captain because they have said the man who wins will be their chief. But there are others and they are many, too, who are nukpana. They will break their promises as if they were the shells of humming-birds' eggs. Then, because Muyingwa is no coward, there may be a great spilling of blood."
"Go on," said Northrup impatiently, seeing that the girl was stopping.
Her eyes had been very hard. Now, suddenly, they grew soft, and into her dusky cheeks a tide of red surged up.
"Muyingwa loves power and gold!" she cried passionately. "Muyingwa loves to strive with other men. But most of all Muyingwa loves a mana, and that mana is Nayangap! His heart sings like a thrush and makes music in Nayangap's heart when he comes to her.
"Nayangap loves gold, too, and she loves power for Muyingwa, and pretty gowns for herself. But most of all she loves Muyingwa's self. And after Muyingwa she loves Yahoya! This Muyingwa knows. His heart is big; he would give to his mana all things. So he has called me aside before the race and told me what I must do for Yahoya's sake."
"If Yahoya were in truth goddess," cried Yahoya, her eyes bright, "she would make Muyingwa this day overlord of all the Seven Cities! Since she is but a maid like you, Nayangap, she prays to the gods for him."
"This is the word of Muyingwa," went on Nayangap swiftly. "There will be a great struggle and many men will go down to Maski. But Muyingwa will win because he will have the stronger party, and because the gods are with him. He has no love for the Man of Wisdom, who has tricked him, saying that Yahoya would be left free to do what she wished.
"Muyingwa says that if the fight comes Yahoya is to stay in her kiva, where harm can not come to her; and that her lover, Yellow Beard, shall come out to stand at Muyingwa's right hand and fight the fight with him."
"Askwali. I thank you," said Yahoya gently. "You will bring us water and food, Nayangap. Yellow Beard shall rest here and sleep, so that when the time comes he shall fight a man's fight. That is best."
Nayangap withdrew upon her errand, going swiftly. Yahoya came to Northrup, then, putting up her arms, looking up into his face:
"My man," she said softly. "Kiss me!" And when he had kissed her: "I love you. I am proud of you. You are such a man as never before came into the world. If you fall to-day I shall run out and throw myself upon your body and die with you. If you live I shall live always with you in paradise. Kiss me again. And now sleep, Saxnorthrup."
The wonder is that Northrup did sleep. He awoke from a dream of sitting in a box at the theater with Yahoya, watching her while she watched the actors. Yahoya was bending over him, her hand laid lightly upon his shoulder.
"The lookout has called out that he can see them returning, Muyingwa and Tiyo," she said gravely. "Shall we go out and watch them, you and I?"