Kish, son of Kish, by Jack London. Thus will I give six
blankets, warm and double, six files large and hard, six Hudson bay
knives, keen edged and long. Two canoes, the work of Mochum,
the maker of things. Ten dogs, heavy shouldered and strong in the harness.
And three guns. The trigger of one be broken, but it is
a good gun and can doubtless be mended. Kish paused and swept his eyes
over the circle of intent faces. It was the time of the great fishing,
and he was bidding to nob for Sousu, his daughter. The place
was the Saint George mission by the Yukon, and the tribes had gathered for
many a hundred miles from north, south, east and west. They had
come even from Tozikakat and far Tananah, and further o nab thou Art,
chief of the Tananah, and I Ki, the son of Kish and chief
of the Tlunget. Wherefore, when my seed springs from the loins of thy
daughter, there shall be a friendship between the tribes, a great friendship,
and Tanana and Thlung it shall be brothers of the blood. In the time
to come. What I have said, I will do, that will I
do and how is it with you, o, Nob, in this matter?
Nob nodded his head gravely, his gnarled and age twisted face inscrutably masking
the soul that dwelt behind. His narrow eyes burned like twin coals through their
narrow slits as he piped in a high cracked voice. But that is not
all? What more? Kish demanded? Have I not offered full measure?
Was there ever yet a Tananau maiden who fetched so great a price? Then?
Name her? An open snicker passed around the circle, and Kish knew
that he stood in shame before these people. Nayn a good Kish, thou
dost not understand? Nob made a soft stroking gesture. The price is fair.
It is a good price. Nor do I question the broken trigger.
But that is not all. What of the man? Aye? What of
the man? The circle snarled? It is said Nob's shrill voice pipe.
It is said that Kish does not walk in the way of his father's.
It is said that he has wandered into the dark after strange gods, and
that he has become afraid. The face of Kish went dark. It is
a lie, he thundered. Kish is afraid of no man. It is
said old nob piped On, that he has hearkened to the speech of the
white man up at the big House, and that he bends head to the
white man's God, and moreover, that blood is displeasing to the white man's
god. Keish dropped his eyes and his hands clenched passionately. The savvage circle
laughed derisively, and in the ear of nob whispered mad Wan, the Shammin,
high priest of the tribe and maker of medicine. The Shumon poked among
the shadows on the rim of the firelight and roused up a slender young boy,
whom he brought face to face with Kish, And in the hand of
Keish he thrust a knife. Nob leaned forward, Kish, O Keish,
darest thou to kill a man. Behold, this is kittsnu a slave.
Strike o' keish, strike with the strength of thy arm. The boy trembled
and waited the stroke. Kish looked at him, and thoughts of mister Browne's
higher morality floated through his mind, and strong upon him was a vision of
the leaping flames of mister Brown's particular brand of hell fire. The knife fell
to the ground, and the boy sighed and went out beyond the firelight with
shaking knees. At the feet of Nob sprawled a wolf dog, which bared
its gleaming teeth, then prepared to spring after the boy. But the shamin
ground his foot into the brute's body, and so doing gave Nob an idea.
And then, O kesh, what wouldst thou do should a man do
this thing to you? As he spoke, Nob held a ribbon of salmon
to white Fang, and when the animal attempted to take it, smote him
sharply on the nose with a stick. And afterward, o'keesh wouldst thou do?
Thus White Fang was cringing back on his belly and fawning to the hand
of Nob. Listen, leaning on the arm of Madua, Nob had risen
to his feet. I am very old, and because I am very old,
I will tell thee things. Thy father Keish was a mighty man,
and he did love the song of the bowstring and battle. And these eyes
have beheld him cast a spear till the head stood out beyond a man's body.
But thou art unlike, since thou left the raven to worship the wolf.
Thou art become afraid of blood, and thou makest thy people afraid.
This is not good. For Behold, when I was a boy, even
as kits knew here, there was no white man in all the land.
But they came one by one, these white men, till now they are
many, and they are a restless breed, never content to rest by the
fire with a full belly and let the morrow bring its own meat. A
curse was laid upon them, it would seem, and they must work it
out in toil and hardship. Kisha startled a recollection of a hazy story told
by mister Brown of one adam of old time came to him, and it
seemed that mister Brown had spoken true. So they laid hands upon all.
They behold these white men, and they go everywhere and behold all things,
and ever do more follow in their footsteps, so that if nothing can be
done, they will come to possess all the land, and there will be
no room for the tribes of the raven. Wherefore it is meet that we
fight with them till none are left. Then will we hold the passes and
the land, and perhaps our children and our children's children shall flourish and grow
fat. There is a great struggle to come when wolf and ravens shall grapple.
But Kish will not fight, nor will he let his people fight.
So it is not well that he should take to him my daughter. Thus
have I spoken, I Nab, chief of the Tananah. But the white
men are good and great. Kish made answer. The white men have taught
us many things. The white men have given us blankets and knives and guns
such as we have never made and never could make. I remember in what
manner we lived before they came. I was unborn then, but I have
it from my father. When we went on the hunt, we must creep
so close to the moose that a spear cast would cover the distance. To
day we used the white man's rifle, and farther away than can a child's
cry be heard. We ate fish and meat and berries. There was nothing
else to eat, and we ate without salt. How many may there be
among you who care to go back to the fish and meat without salt?
It would have sunk home. Had not mad one leaped to his feet,
ere silence could come, and first a question to thee Kish. The white
man up at the big house tells you that it is wrong to kill.
Yet do we not know that the white men kill? Have we forgotten the
great fight on the Koyukuk or the great fight at Neklukyeto where three white men
killed twenty of the Toza Kakats. Do you think we no longer remember the
three men of the Tannanaw that the white man Mackelrath killed. Tell me,
o Keish, why does the Shamin Brown teach you that it is wrong to
fight when all his brothers fight. Nay, nay, there is no need
to answer, Nob piped while Kish struggled with the paradox. It is very
simple. The good man Brown would hold the raven tight whilst his brothers plucked
the feathers. He raised his voice. But so long as there is one
tannaaw to strike a blow, or one maiden to bear a manchild, the
raven shall not be plucked. Nob turned to a husky young man across the
fire, and what sayest thou. Makamuk, who art brother to Sousu Makamuk,
came to his feet. A long faced scar lifted his upper lip into
a perpetual grin, which belied the glowing ferocity of his eyes. This day
he began with cunning irrelevance. I came by the trader maclrath's cabin, and
in the door I saw a child laughing at the sun. And the child
looked at me with the trader Maclrath's eyes, and it was frightened. The
mother ran to it and quieted it. The mother was Ziska, the clung
a woman. A snarl of rage rose up and drowned his voice, which
he instilled by turning dramatically upon Kish with outstretched arm and accusing finger. So
you give your women away, you flung it, and come to the tananav
for more. But we have need of our women, Kish, for we
must breed men, many men against the day when the raven grapples with the
wolf. Through the storm of applause, Nob's voice shrilled clear, and Tha
Maasabuk, who art her favorite brother. The young man was slender and graceful,
with the strong akoline nose and high brows of his type, but from
some nervous affliction, the lid of one eye drooped at odd times in a
suggestive wink. Even as he arose, it drooped and rested a moment against
his cheek. But it was not greeted with the accustomed laughter. Every face
was grave. I too, passed by the trader macaelraths cabin. He rippled
in soft girlish tones, And I saw Indians with the sweat running into their
eyes and their knees shaking with weariness. I say, I saw Indians groaning
under the logs from the store which the trader Mackelrath is to build. And
with my eyes I saw them chopping wood to keep the shamin browns big as
warm through the frost of the long nights. This be squaw work. Never
shall the Tana now do that like we shall be blood brothers to men,
not squaws, and the plunget be squaws. A deep silence fell, and
all eyes centered on Keish. He looked about him, carefully, deliberately,
full into the face of each grown man. So he said, passion lesslie,
and so he repeated, then turned on his heel without further word,
and passed out into the darkness, waiting among sprawling babies and bristling wolf dogs.
He threaded the great camp, and on its outskirts came upon a woman
at work by the light of a fire, with strings of bark stripped from
the long roots of creeping vines. She was braiding rope for the fishing.
For some time, without speech, he watched her deft hands bringing law and
order out of the unruly mass of curling fibers. She was good to look
upon, swaying there to her task, strong limbed, deep chested, and
with hips made for motherhood. And the bronze of her face was golden in
the flickering light, her hair blue black, her eyes jet O susu,
He spoke, finally, thou hast looked upon me kindly in the days that
have gone, and in the days yet young, I looked kindly upon thee,
for that thou wert chief of the plunget, she answered quickly, And
because thou wert big and strong. Aye. But that was in the old
days of the fishing, she hastened to add. Before this Shamann Brown came
and taught these ill things, and led thy feet on strange trails. But
I would tell thee. She held up one hand in a gesture which reminded
him of her father. Nay, I know already the speech that stirs in
thy throat, O kish, and I make answer now. It so happeneth
that the fish of the water, and the beasts of the forest bring forth
after their kind, And this is good. Likewise it happeneth to women.
It is for them to bring forth their kind. And even the maiden,
while she is yet a maiden, feels the pang of the birth, and
the pain of the breast, and the small hands at the neck. And
when such feeling is strong, then does each maiden look about her with secret
eyes for the man, for the man who shall be fit to father her
kind. So have I felt, So did I feel when I looked upon
thee and found thee big and strong, a hunter and fighter of beasts and
men, well, able to win meat when I should eat for two,
well able to keep danger afar off when my helplessness drew nigh. But that
was before the day the shaman Braun came into the land and taught thee.
But it is not right, su su I have it on good work.
It is not right to kill. I know what thou wouldst say. Then
breed thou after thy kind, the kind that does not kill. But come
not on such quest among the tananah. For it is said in the time
to come that the raven shall grapple with the wolf I do not know,
for this be the affair of men. But I do know that it is
for me to bring forth men against that time su su kish broken. Thou
must hear me. A man would beat me with a stick and make me
here, she sneered, But thou here, She thrust a bunch of bark
into his head. I cannot give thee myself, but this, yes,
it looks fittest in thy hands. It is squaw work so bright. Away
he flung it from him, the angry blood pounding a muddy path under his
bronze. One more thing, she went on. There be an old custom
which thy father and mine were not strangers to. When a man falls in
battle, his scalp is to be carried away in token. Very good.
But thou, who have forsworn the raven, must do more. Thou must
bring me not scalps, but heads, two heads. And then will I
give thee not bark, but a brave beaded belt and sheath and long Russian
knife. Then while I look kindly upon thee once again, and all will
be well, so the man pondered. So then he turned and passed out
through the night. Nay o kish, she called after him, not two
heads, but three at least. But Kish remained true to his conversion,
lived uprightly, and made his tribes people obey the gospels propounded by Reverend Jackson
Brown. Through all the time of the fishing, he gave no heed to
the Tananah, nor took notice of the sly things which were said, nor
of the laughter of the women of the many tribes. After the fishing,
nob and his people, with great store of salmon, sun dried and smoke
cured, departed for the hunting on the head reaches of the Tananah. Kish
watched them go, but did not fail in his attendance at mission service,
where he prayed regularly and led the singing with his deep bass voice. The
Reverend Jackson Brown delighted in that deep bass voice, and because of his sterling
qualities, deemed him the most promising convert. Mackelrath doubted this. He did
not believe in the efficacy of the conversion of the heathen, and he was
not slow in speaking his mind. But mister Brown was a large man in
his way, and he argued it out with such convincingness all of one long
all night, that the trader driven from position after position finally announced in desperation,
knock out my brains with apples, Brown, if I don't become a
convert myself. If Keish holds fast true blue for two years, mister Brown
never lost an opportunity, so he clinched the matter on the spot with a
virile hand grip, and thenceforth the conduct of Keish was to determine the ultimate
abiding place of Mackelrath's soul. But there came news one day after the winter
rhyme had settled down over the la land sufficiently for travel. A Tananau man
arrived at the Saint George Mission in quest of ammunition and bringing information that Susu
had set eyes on Nikou, a nervy young hunter who had bid brilliantly for
her by old nobs fire. It was at about this time that the Reverend
Jackson Brown came upon Kish by the wood trail which leads down to the river.
Kish had his best dogs in the harness, and shoved under the sled
lashings was his largest and finest pair of snow shoes. Where goest thou o'
keish hunting? Mister Brown asked, Falling into the Indian manner, Kish looked
him steadily in the eyes for a full minute, then started up his dogs.
Then again turning his deliberate gaze upon the missionary, he answered, no,
I go to hell. In an open space, striving to burrow into
the snow, as though for shelter from the appalling desolateness, huddled, three
dreary lodges ringed all About a dozen paces away was the somber forest. Overhead.
There was no keen blue sky of naked space, but a vague,
misty curtain pregnant with snow, which had drawn between. There was no wind,
no sound, nothing but the snow and silence. Nor was there even
the gentle stir of life about the camp. For the hunting party had run
upon the flank of the caribou herd, and the kill had been large.
Thus, after the period of fasting had come the plenitude of feasting. And
thus in broad daylight they slept heavily under their roofs of moose hide by a
fire. Before one of the lodges, five pairs of snow shoes stood on
end in their element, and by the fire set sousu. The hood of
her squirrel skin parka was about her hair and well drawn up around her neck,
but her hands were unmittened and nimbly at work with needle and sinew,
completing the last fantastic design on a belt of leather faced with bright scarlet cloth.
A dog somewhere at the rear of one of the lodges raised a short,
sharp bark, then ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Once.
Her father, in the lodge at her back gurgled and grunted in his sleep
bad dream, She smiled to herself, he grows old, and that last
joint was too much. She placed the last bead, nodded the sinew,
and replenished the fire. Then, after gazing long into the flames, she
lifted her head to the harsh crunch crunch of a moccasined foot against the flinty
snow granules. Kish was at her side, bending slightly forward to a load
which he bore upon his back. This was wrapped loosely in a soft tanned
moose hide, and he dropped it carelessly into the snow and sat down.
They looked at each other long and without speech. It it is a far
fetch, o keish, she said, at last, A far fetch from
Saint Jeorde mission by the yukon I he made answer absently, his eyes fixed
keenly upon the belt and taking note of its girth. But where's the knife,
he demanded. Here she drew it from inside her parka and flashed its
naked lengths in the firelight. It is a good knife. Give it me,
he commanded. Nay o keish, she laughed. It may be that
thou wast not born to wear it. Give it to me, he reiterated,
without change of tone, I was so born. But her eyes glancing
coquettishly, pasted him to the moose hide, saw the snow about it,
slowly reddening. It is blood, kish, she asked, Ay, it
is blood, But give me the belt and the long Russian knife. She
felt suddenly afrayed, but thrilled when he took the belt roughly from her.
Thrilled to the roughness, she looked at him softly, and aware of a
pain at the breast and of small hands clutching her throat. It was made
for a smaller man, he remarked, grimly, drawing in his abdomen and
clasping the buckle at the first hole. Sousu smiled, and her eyes were
yet softer Again, she felt the soft hands at her throat. He was
good to look upon, and the belt was indeed small, made for a
smaller man. But what did it matter? She could make many belts.
But the blood, she asked, urged on by a hope new born and
growing the blood? Kish is it? Are they heads? I? They
must be very fresh? Else would the blood be frozen? I? It
is not cold, and they be fresh, quite fresh. Oh, keees.
Her face was warm and bright, and for me, I for thee.
He took hold of a corner of the height, flirted it open,
and rolled the heads out before her. Three, he whispered, savagely,
nay four at least, but she sat transfixed. There they lay the soft
featured Nikou, the gnarled old face of Noob mocka muck, grinning at her
with his lifted upper lip. And lastly Nossabach, his eyelid up to its
old trick, drooped on his girlish cheek in a suggestive wink. There they
lay the firelight flashing upon and playing over them, and from each of them
a widening circle dyed the snow to scarlet. God by the fire, the
white crust gave way beneath the head of nob, which rolled over like a
thing alive, spun around and came to rest at her feet, but she
did not move. Kish, too, sat motionless, his eyes unblinking,
centered steadfastly upon her. Once in the forest, an overburdened pine dropped its
load of snow, and the echoes reverberated hollowly down the gorge, but neither
stirred. The short day had been waning fast, and darkness was wrapping round
the camp when White Fang trotted up toward the fire. He paused to reconnoiter,
but not being driven back, came closer. His nose shot swiftly to
the side, nostrils a tremble, and bristles rising along the spine, and
straight and true, he followed the sudden scent to his master's head. He
sniffed it gingerly at first, and licked the forehead with his red, lolling
tongue. Then he sat abruptly down, pointed his nose up at the first
faint star, and raised the long wolf howl. This brought Sousu to herself.
She glanced across at Kish, who had unsheathed the Russian knife and was
watching her intently. His face was firm and set, and in it she
read the law. Slipping back the hood of her parka, she buried her
neck and rose to her feet. There she paused and took a long look
about her, at the rimming forest, at the faint stars in the sky,
at the camp, at the snow shoes in the snow, A last,
long comprehensive look at life. A light breeze stirred her hair from the
side, and for the space of one deep breath, she turned her head
and followed it around until she met it full faced. Then she thought of
her children ever to be unborn, and she walked over to Keish and said,
I am ready Keish, son of Keish by Jack London