We was too excited to sleep, so we decided to leave the Gulch and go there straight away, riding double on Eeteh’s pinto. Eeteh put the emigrant clothes on again to hide himself and we slid down out a the cave with our traps to where Heyokha was hobbled. Heyokha warn’t all that happy about the extra freight, but he seemed as keen as us to leave the Gulch behind, and stumbled along, wagging his croup, without no complaint.
It would likely be raining by morning, but for now the sky was bright with the same mad scatter a stars Jim and me seen back on the Big River, or stars just like them, so we didn’t even need the lantern lit. Whilst we was moseying along, Eeteh told me a Snake story. Coyote warn’t in it, he was dead and gone, scattered all around the sky. Eeteh pointed up at parts of him. The rest a the stars, he says, was mica dust. He says Snake was the cleverest cretur a body ever knowed. Most people admired him for how smart he was, but not all the world. Some a them was missing Coyote. Life warn’t so hard or dangersome when Coyote was around. That’s what some was thinking, though nobody says it out loud. And back then it warn’t so dreadful gloomy. Coyote made them laugh. Mouse pipes up timidly and asks if they remembered the story about Coyote’s talking member? Everybody was grinning. Mouse was grinning. Snake’s forked tongue darted out and sweeped Mouse up, then he spitted out his remainders. Nobody was grinning now. Snake was a serene cretur, but he never tolerated no distractions. Some a Snake’s pards says that’s a good thing. It’s what was wrong in Coyote’s time. Argufying all the time about nothing, making stupid jokes. Nobody argufied or joked with Snake’s pards, nor not with Snake nuther.
I wanted to hear the story about Coyote’s talking member, but all Eeteh’s stories was about Snake now. I says they ain’t so funny like before, and Eeteh says he can’t help it, he only tells true stories. He says Snake maybe warn’t so good for laughs like Coyote, but he could be kind and generous, specially to his friends. He set up Lizard in a new tepee next to his own and sent him various ladies to company him there. When Lizard complained that Bee stung him on his tail for only helping himself to some a Bee’s honey, Snake went over to the hive to stomp him. But he warn’t home, so Snake stomped Bee’s family instead. Losing all his family like that made Bee mad, and he flew into Snake’s mouth to sting him mortally in the throat, but he didn’t get past Snake’s teeth. Snake, chomping, says he wished Bee tasted more like the honey he used to make. Eeteh says it’s a story children get told about not losing your temper.
We had to stop under an overhang for a morning storm to pass, so it was already noontime when we finally reached the tribe’s old camp. Eeteh went ahead to be sure none a the families warn’t still living there, but the camp was empty, they was all gone together. The camp set in a sweet spot in a broad grassy valley in the Hills alongside of a crick. The only broke-in horse we could find was an arthritic old nag with cracked heels and eye ulcers. But we seen a couple a wild stallions less’n a mile away and we set about calculating how we could catch one. Eeteh knowed where the tribe stored dried corn and other grains we could offer up like bait, and he dug some out so’s I could judge for myself. He found some desecrated fruit that we et and a couple of old ruined lodge covers we could use to tarpolin off the rain.
Eeteh showed me a big eagle pit and how it worked. It had a cover made a poles crossed together like bootlaces and covered over with brush and grass, which was now mostly dry and blowing away. A dead rabbit or other cretur was laid on the cover, Eeteh says, and the hunter kneeled in the pit under the cover till an eagle come down to chaw on it. The hunter had to wait till he could catch the eagle from behind and grab both his legs at the same time and tie him up without getting pecked or clawed to death. The eagle always fought like crazy and sometimes, if the hunter warn’t strong enough or fast enough, he got hurt and the bird flew away. Eeteh smiled sheepish and showed me the scars on his arm. He lifted the cover to show me the pit, and there was Tongo!
They had trussed him up and throwed him in there and left him to starve to death, probably too afraid of him to kill him right out. He raired his big head when he heard me shout, then fell back again. Eeteh, cussing his cousins, jumped down into the pit and cut Tongo’s bonds with his knife, but the horse was too weak to stand, or even try. I was already in the pit with him, holding his head. He warn’t nothing but hide and bones. His hoofs moved like they was trying to write something in the dirt under him. “Water!” I says, still holding his head in my lap, and Eeteh sprung out a the pit. “And bring some a that corn!”
CHAPTER XXXII