Green Centuries by Caroline Gordon

Author:Caroline Gordon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: J.S. Sanders books
Published: 1992-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 35

ARCHY had gone to the river with the other young men that morning to fish. Towards noon he got hungry and went back to the house to get some stewed meat. He washed his meat down with a gourdful of gruel, then, feeling a little heavy, sat down against a tree trunk to rest. He had not meant to go to sleep and he felt foolish when he woke and found the old Lanthorn looking at him. Anxious to get out of her sight he rose and, taking his fish spear, went down the street.

He walked fast to the end of the street and turned into the double row of elms that ran through the middle of the town. As he walked along this avenue he slowed his steps, glancing towards the square. At this time of day the town house was deep in the shade of its great elm. Some of the older men were gathered in front of it, some sitting on reed divans, others sprawled on the ground or leaning against trees. He recognized his foster-father, the Carpenter, among them and beside him, towering over most of the men, the war chief, Oconostota.

The shadows of the elm leaves were thick on the road he was traveling. A breeze sprang up. The shadows quivered like running water. From the river the shouts of the fishermen came to him faintly. He shifted his hand down his pole until he found its middle and began to run lightly over the hard ground. He was nearing the avenue when he heard some one calling and stopped.

“Yo-na-di-hi!”

They were calling him, the Bear Killer. He turned around and went towards them. There were half a dozen men taking their ease under the great tree. In the center the Carpenter sat on one of the long reed divans. The divan had been pushed up against the tree and the Carpenter leaned against the trunk as if it were the back of a chair. There was room for two or three men on each side of him but he sat alone. Facing him on another divan were the Old Tassel, head chief of all the Nation and Oconostota, the war chief, and his nephew, the Raven. The others, mostly old men, squatted on their haunches or leaned against trees.

The Carpenter raised his yellow hand as Archy came up. “Sit among us old men for a while, my son.”

Archy thanked him and would have squatted on the ground but the old chief patted the vacant place beside him. Archy rose and silently took the place the chief indicated. He was aware as he did so that the eyes of all the men in the circle had swung towards him and he kept his own eyes bent on the ground as he had seen the other young bucks do in the presence of the headman. But he wished that the Carpenter had not made him sit beside him. It was not fitting that a man as young as he, and a white man to boot, should be asked to sit beside the peace chief.

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