Ryan Marah Ellis - The Flute of the Gods стр 9.

It is well, said another, even when half the mind is gone, it may be gone only a little while on the twilight trail to the Great Mystery.

The life music comes in many ways, said K[=a] ye-fah, the Ruler. Many reeds grow under the summer sun, but not in all of them do we hear the call of the spirit people when the wild reed is fashioned for the flute. The gods themselves grow the flutes of High Mystery. This youth is only a reed by the river to-dayyet through such reed the gods may send speech for our ears.

We will listen, said the others. Let us hear more of the men whose blankets are made of the hard substance. And at this Tahn-té again took courage and spoke.

These iron men say they are only on a hunting trailthey say they will not trouble the peoplethat is what their men say who speak for them! But if one boy, or one man, could talk as they talk, you men of Povi-whah would know better if they speak straight. My mother has found the trail to her people on the right day, and has brought me here. I want to be the boy who learns that talk of the hunters of the blue stones and sacred sun metal of the earth, and then I can come back and tell it to the wise men of my mothers people.

But you may not come back.

I will ask all the Powers that I will come back. My mother will pray also, and her prayers are strong.

I will pray also, said S[=aa] hanh-que-ah.

The men smoked, and the boy watched them and waited until K[=a] ye-fah spoke.

That which the son of this wise woman says is to be well thought of;it may be precious to us in days not yet born of the sun. You who listen know that we are living now in a day that was told of by Ki-pah in the years of our Lost Others, and Ki-pah spoke as the god Po-se-yemo spoke:he was given great magic to see the years ahead of the years he lived.

It is true, assented the governorIt was when the people yet lived in the caves, and the water went into the sands in that highlandthat is when he came to our Lost OthersKi-pahthe great wisdom. He came from the south, and taught them to come down from the caves and build houses by the great river, and to turn the water to the fields here. All things worked with himand Kah-poand Oj-ke and P[=o] ho-gé were built and stand to this day where he said they must be built. He knew all speech, and could tell magic things from a bowl of clear water. It was in the water he saw men who were white, and who would cover the land if we were not strong. These men are the men he saw in the water. I think it is so, and that this is the time to be strong.

CHAPTER V

TAHN-TÉ AMONG STRANGERS

The one thing to which the boy gave awed attention was that when the time came for the villages to fighta leader would be born to themif the people of the valley were true to their gods they would be strong always, Ki-pah the prophet told them to remember always the war star in the skythe star Po-se-yemo had told them of, when it moved, the time to make war would be here.

And when the time came to fight, a leader would come to them, as he, Ki-pah had come! Because of this thought was the heart of the boy thrilled that he had been called a reed by the rivera reed through which music of the desert gods might speak.

He was filled with wild fancies of mystic things born of these prophecies. And the old men said that perhaps this was the time of which Po-se-yemo, the god, and Ki-pah, the prophet, had told!

The vote of a Te-hua council has to be the agreement of every man, and the star of the morning brought dawn to the valley before the last reluctant decided it was well to send a messenger to learn of the strange gods.

But as the sun rose Tahn-té bathed in the running water of the river, and his prayer was of joy:for he was to go!

In joy, and with the light of exaltation in his face he said farewell to boy thoughts, and walked lightly over the highlands and the valleys to Ua-lano, and thence followed the adventurers to Ci-cu-yé and bent the knee to Father Luis, and kissed the cross, and let water be sprinkled over him, and did all the things shown him with so glad a heart that the devoted priest gave praise for such a convert from the pagan people. So pleased was he with the eagerness of Tahn-té to learn, that he made him his own assistant at the ceremonies of the Holy Faith.

And after each one, the boy washed his hands in running water, and scattered prayer meal to the gods of the elements, and to the Sun Father God, and knew that in Provi-whah his mother was praying also that he be not harmed by the god of the gold huntersand that he come back strong with the white mans magic.

The boy Ka-yemo of the Tain-tsain clan was also sentbut neither boy was told of the quest of the other. The old men decided it was better so. Without pay they went with the Spanish adventurers, one serving the men of arms and learning the ways of the strange animals, and the other serving the priests and learning the symbols of the strangers creed of the one goddess, and two gods, and many Go-h[=e] yahs, called saints by the men of the iron clothes.

They both saw many strange things in Ci-cu-yé, and they saw the strange Indian slave, whom the old men of Ci-cu-yé instructed to lead the men of iron from their land with the romance of Quivera. And the slave did it, and told the strangers of the mythic land of gold and gems, and lost his life in the end by doing so, but the life of the romance was more enduring than any other thing, and the spirit of that treasure search still broods over the deserts and the mountains of that land.

But the stay of Ka-yemo was not even the length of the first winter with the strangers. For in Tiguex where the great captain (Coronado) wintered, and made his comfort by turning the natives out of their houses, there was a season of grievous strife ere the Spring came, and the two boys of Te-hua saw things unspeakable as two hundred Indians of the valley, captured under truce, were burned at the stake by the soldiers of the cross.

One of the reasons for the crusade to the north as written in the chronicles of Christian Mexico was to save the souls of the heathen for the one god,and his advocates were sending the said souls for judgement as quickly as might be!

Tahn-té stood, pale and tense in the house where the chapel of Fray Juan Padilla had been established,once it had been the house of the governor of the village who might even now be among the victims of the broken trust.

On the altar was a crucifix in gold on ebony, and the eyes of the boy were not kindly as he regarded it.

They lie when they say you are a god of peace like our god Po-se-yemo, he said. They lie when they say you are the god of the red manyou are the white god of the white peopleand you will let the red men hold not anything that your white children want!

He heard himself speak the words aloud there alone where the new altar washe seemed to hear himself saying it over and over as if by the sound of his own voice he could kill the sound of the tortured red men in the court.

A blanketed figure ran in at the open door, halted at the sound of Tahn-tés voiceand then flung himself forward. It was Ka-yemo and his teeth were chattering at the thought of the inferno without.

It may be they will not look for us here, he said as he saw who it was in the chapelPerhapsif one keeps nearto their strong god: and you are close alsoand

I stay close because it is my work,said Tahn-té. Some of the men tied to the stakes out there bent before their strong god and said prayers there.Did it save them?