Chapter XIX How Joe Came Home
When Nina saw Joe fall and heard him slide down the bank and into the water she thought he was dead.
When she could see nothing of him, and heard the Indians rushing through the trees and grass above her she fled like a startled rabbit through the undergrowth.
She saw an Indian dash down the bank and look up and down the creek, then she heard his footsteps recede and words called out in a language she did not understand. Twice while she hid and cowered in the undergrowth she saw Indians come down to the creek and look along its banks, then she heard them ride away.
Many times in her flight she stopped and listened. It was pitch-dark in the thicket, and the little girl, creeping forward through the underbrush, was half-crazed with fear. But she knew that her best protection from capture by the savages was in the tangled brush, and she fought her way gallantly through it, and just at dawn found herself at the edge of the thicket, with the broad, open prairies before her.
Remembering Joe’s directions she gave the whistle he had always used in calling Kit, and to her unbounded joy heard a low, smothered whinny in answer.
In her terror and loneliness it sounded to the little Princess like the voice of an old friend. Guiding her direction by the sound she stole along in the shadow of the thicket and not long after came to where Kit, still tied as Joe had left her, turned her slender head and intelligent eyes toward her, pawing the ground with an impatient hoof.
Nina had never ridden horseback, but she was too terrified, too weary now to remember that. Clasping her arms about Kit’s neck she managed to scramble on her back and started off, not knowing which way to go, but eager to put distance in any direction between herself and the horrors with which she had been surrounded.
She had to cling tight to Kit’s mane to keep from falling off, and was afraid to let her go much faster than a walk, so that her progress was slow and difficult. Sunrise found her plodding on, a forlorn little figure on a big bay mare, tears running down her face, and muffled sobs shaking her.
Shortly after sunrise she was overtaken by a band of Winnebago Indians laden with elk hides and buffalo skins, returning to their camp from a week’s hunt in the Blackbird Hills.
The surprise of the Indians may be imagined when seeing a solitary rider ambling slowly and apparently aimlessly over the prairies, they overtook it and saw that the rider was a beautiful little white girl, who cried bitterly when they spoke to her and would not tell who she was, where she had come from or where she was going.
None of the band could speak English, and as Nina knew no Indian there was little chance of her being able to inform them. It was quite evident, however, that the child was wild with terror when they approached her, and when they took her and her horse in tow she shrieked and fought, utterly unaware that they were doing their utmost to assure her that they were “good Indians,” that they never hurt children and would take her back to her home and family if she could make them understand where she lived.
After much perplexed discussion among themselves the Winnebagoes decided to take her back with them to their encampment, where they would find some of their tribe who spoke English, and find out who the young stranger might be.
They tried to be kind and gentle to her, and the squaws did their best to comfort her, but the child was in a perfect panic of terror, and at the approach of every new person shrank and shuddered, looking with great agonized violet eyes into the faces of the Indians, and shaking and trembling with fear. To her all Indians were alike, and momentarily she expected the hated Red Snake to come and claim her.
As days passed, however, and Red Snake did not appear, when day followed day and no dreadful thing happened to her, and she saw the boys and men ride away leaving her behind with the squaws, old men and children, she began to be less afraid. Little by little the haunted look of terror left her eyes, and after a time she began to scrape acquaintance with the children that hung fascinated about her. The bright-eyed little papooses strapped to their rigid back-boards appealed to her wonderfully, and when she sat down before them and played with them, chucking them under their fat little chins and playing “peek-a-boo” with her apron, they squealed with laughter, and she too could begin to smile. After a while she began to play with the little Indian girls and boys, and little by little to learn their language and teach them hers.
Twice the camp was moved, and Nina was moved with it, helping the squaws with the babies, and feeling tremendous interest in the bustle of preparation, when the teepees were taken down, folded and tied with cords made of deer and buffalo hide, and fastened to the ponies, strong shaggy little beasts which dragged them after them in long traces, while the women carried the bundles, and the braves walked along smoking their pipes ahead of the procession, or nonchalantly rode their ponies, leaving the squaws and children to bear all the burdens and shoulder all the responsibilities of moving.
At first Nina could not understand these moves, but gradually came to know that the Indians were engaged in their fall hunt, and that while the men scoured the plains for the animals that provided them with food, clothing, and shelter for the winter, the women and children moved slowly along behind them with the equipment, so that the camp to which the hunters belonged was never far away.
The Indians were all kind to her, the women gentle and even motherly to the little paleface that had been thrust so unceremoniously among them, the men quiet and grave, but never cross nor severe.
Gradually as the days passed by she became fond of her little playfellows, and though she was desperately unhappy, and longed with a sick, yearning heartache for her adopted home, she did not suffer as she might have suffered if she had fallen among less quiet and gentle people.
One day when she had been romping over the prairie with the children and dogs they came back to find a great band of hunters just riding in, laden with the fruits of the chase. Some of them bore long poles on their shoulders from which were suspended the carcases of elk and deer, others carried great willow baskets, which the Indian women made, containing the meat of deer, antelope, and buffaloes which had been stripped from the bones to save carrying the huge bodies; others carried great baskets of grouse, prairie-chicken, and quail, and the whole camp was full of rejoicing.
Among the hunters was one tall, powerful Indian, who stopped short as the group of children came running toward them, and stared at Nina with an expression of utter astonishment on his face.
Pointing his finger at her he asked in the Winnebago dialect how she came to be there. A babel of tongues broke out among the children and squaws, each trying to tell her version of the story.
Nina, seeing him staring at her, was filled with fear. Her face paled, her great violet eyes widened with terror, and her bosom began to heave. But the red man walked straight up to her and put out a big brown hand.
“How, Nee-ah-nah,” he said, and smiled down upon her.
Nina, with a trembling hand at her bosom, drew back.
The big Indian smiled, and putting his hand in his bosom, brought forth a little chain of blue beads which he held up before her.
The child looked, gasped, then looked again, then with a joyful cry ran to him.
“Neowage, Neowage!” she cried.
The big Indian grinned down at her and held her hand.
“How come here?” he asked gently.
Nina burst into tears. “I was captured by the Sioux,” she cried. “They made an assault on the house—they got me—and Joe—Joe came after me to rescue me—and he was killed, Neowage, he was killed! Red Snake shot him.”
Neowage threw up his hands. “Ai-ee, ai-ee! Keel? Sho keel? Ai-ee, that too bad. Tell.”
Between her heartbroken sobs Nina told of the assault upon the sod house, of her capture, and of Joe’s attempted rescue and what followed. When she had finished she clung to Neowage’s hand sobbing bitterly.
“Take me home, Neowage,” she begged, “oh, take me home! They’ve been good and kind to me here, but oh, I want to go back to Mother Peniman, and Ruth and Sara and Lige and Sam and little Da-da! I want to go back to them and try to comfort them, for if it were not for me dear Joe would not now be gone.”
The big Indian stroked the golden hair with his great brown hands and patted and comforted her.
“Me take you home, Nee-ah-nah,” he said, “me take you home.”
The next morning Nina bade farewell to the squaws and papooses, the boys and girls that had been so kind to her, and mounted upon Kit’s back, rode away by the side of Neowage in the direction of the homestead on the Blue River.
It was a soft golden day in early October, and the prairies were yellow with goldenrod and spangled gayly with sunflowers and St. Michaelmas daisies. As they rode the sun cast long shadows on the grass that looked like brown velvet in the distance, and the sky arched over them with a blue that is all Nebraska’s own.
They talked little on the way. Neowage seemed to have fallen into a fit of deep musing, and Nina’s heart was too sore with grief to feel like attempting conversation.
They rested that night at an Indian camp on the prairies, and started at daylight the next morning. It was almost evening when familiar landmarks began to come in sight, and quite dark when they rode up to the sod house.
The lamps were lighted inside, and creeping up to the windows Nina looked in, with a heart that was like to burst with mingled grief and joy.
The children had gone to bed, and on either side of the table sat Joshua and Hannah Peniman. The Bible was open on the table between them, and Joshua Peniman’s head was bent forward on his hands while Hannah sat with hands folded in her lap, her eyes on the fire, with an expression of heartbreak in their depths that made Nina sob aloud.
Somewhere in that land of broken dreams in which her thoughts were wandering Hannah Peniman heard the sound. She started, looked up, saw the face at the window, and with a sharp, gasping breath sprang to her feet, her hand pressed against her breast.
Nina dashed to the door, threw it open, and sprang into her arms.
“Mother Peniman, Mother Peniman!” she sobbed over and over, unable to speak any other word.
“Nina! Nina! My lamb! My child! Where did you come from?”
Joshua Peniman had sprung to his feet and stood staring like a man in a dream.
Before he could speak Mrs. Peniman had loosed Nina’s arms from her neck and peered into her face.
“Nina”—she gasped, “Joe—where is he?”
Nina buried her head in Mrs. Peniman’s bosom. “Oh, Mother Peniman, Mother Peniman,” she wailed over and over as if she could not speak the words that must be spoken.
Joshua Peniman came to her, raised her head, and with his haggard eyes gazed into her face.
“What is it, Nina?” he said, with the gentle tone of authority she knew so well in his shaking voice. “Tell us. Anything is better than suspense.”
It was some minutes before she could control herself enough to speak. Then, as gently as she could, she told her story. When it was finished there was no sound in the room. Joshua Peniman stood as if turned to stone, while Hannah Peniman’s face turned from white to livid grey and looked as if stricken with death.
The sound of the talking had wakened the children, and they now came rushing out into the room; there was a wild shout of joy, which was changed to bitter tears as they heard the news she had brought them.
Suddenly Joshua Peniman raised his head.
“I have not thought to ask how you got here, Nina?” he said, in a voice she would scarcely have recognized. “Surely you did not come alone?”
“No, Neowage brought me.”
“Neowage? Where is he?”
They found him squatted in the grass outside, with too much delicacy of feeling to obtrude himself upon the family in their grief.
Joshua Peniman grasped his hand in silence, unable to speak. In silence the Indian returned the pressure.
When he had greeted the family with his impassive “How,” and had eaten the meal which the weeping Ruth provided for him, he lay down before the fire and gazed thoughtfully into its depths. Hannah Peniman had gone away into the night alone, Ruth had taken Nina away to bed, and Joshua Peniman sat with his arms on the table and his head bowed upon them, a prey to the agony and despair of losing an eldest and best-beloved son.
Suddenly Neowage looked up.
“Nee-ah-nah no see him die!”
Mr. Peniman raised his head, and his gentle face was seamed and seared as if a dozen years had gone over it.
“No, but I fear it is as she said. Joe would have been home before this if he was alive.”
“Sho no dead!”
Again Neowage relapsed into silence, smoking his pipe and gazing steadily into the fire. Presently he rose, gathered his blanket about him, and shaking his host’s hand solemnly strode forth into the night.
For three days the Peniman family mourned Joe as dead.
Mr. Peniman said little, but his hair turned white, almost in a night, and into Hannah Peniman’s eyes had come a look of silent, patient suffering that none of the family could look upon without tears.
To Lige and Sam the blow had come with a shock that left them stunned for a while, then overcome with uncontrollable grief. Ruth and Nina clung to one another in a sorrow too sharp and keen for words, and the little ones wept without ceasing for the brother who did not come home.
On the morning of the fourth day the Chapter had been read, the silent prayer was over, and the family set mournfully about the work that had to be done, no matter how heavy the heart.
Going down to the spring for water Lige passed the dugout, and hearing the step outside Kit put her head out and whinnied.
The sound fairly unmanned him.
Kit had always known Joe’s step, and had greeted him with that glad little whinny every morning.
“He can’t come to you this morning, Kit,” he whispered huskily, going to her and putting his arms about her neck, “he can’t come to you—or to us—ever again.” And leaning against the smooth brown neck he burst into a passion of tears.
To none of the family perhaps, except his mother, had Joe’s absence brought more poignant grief. Always together, from their very babyhood, and dependent largely upon one another for companionship, there had grown up between the lads a comradeship so close, an affection so sweet and strong, that life seemed scarcely to be endured apart from one another.
Lige had striven nobly to fill Joe’s place, hoping daily, almost hourly, to see him come riding home. But as the days and weeks passed that hope had grown gradually fainter and fainter, until the news that he had just heard was merely a confirmation of the fear that was in his heart.
So deeply was he plunged in grief that when he chanced to glance out and see two riders dashing across the prairies he took no interest in them. He glanced at them idly, then turned away as the blur of hot, bitter tears dimmed his eyes.
Brushing them hastily aside he took up his pail and went on to the spring.
Thus it was that Sam was the first to herald the approach of the strangers.
“Father,” he said, in a sad, subdued voice, utterly unlike Sam’s usual cheerful bellow, “here come two men on horseback. One of ’em looks like an Indian.”
Mr. Peniman rose quickly and went to the door. He had no hope, yet something in the words of Neowage the night before had clung in his memory and said themselves over and over in his brain all night.
“Nee-ah-nah no see him die.”
No one had seen him die! Perhaps—perhaps God in His infinite mercy——
As he stood in the doorway with his hand shading his eyes, his silvery hair glistening in the morning light, there was a strange tumult in his breast.
He shaded his eyes and gazed intently. Presently when the riders had come nearer he saw one of them lean forward and wave his hat about his head.
“Hannah!” he called in a queer, choked voice, “Hannah!”
Something in his tone brought her hurrying to the door.
The riders were now galloping madly. One of them, far in advance of the other, leaned forward on his horse’s neck, and waved and waved, riding as if the horse could not carry him fast enough.
With a gasping breath Hannah Peniman clutched her husband’s hand. Neither spoke. Both ashen pale, silent, tense, they strained forward, their eyes set on the riders galloping toward them.
Suddenly from Hannah Peniman’s lips came a hoarse, “Merciful God!”
At the same moment Sam leaped through the door and began racing toward the riders with Paul at his heels, shouting frantically, “Joe, Joe, Joe!”
The riders were close now, and the foremost, with tears streaming down his pale cheeks, was lashing the little Indian pony with one hand, while with the other he waved and waved his hat about his head, shouting, “Home, home, home!”
None of them ever knew who reached him first, how or when or where he got off his horse, or how they all got back to the sod house, laughing and crying and clinging to one another, and saying over and over again as if they would never tire, “Joe’s home, Joe’s alive, Joe’s home again!”
Down at the spring Lige had heard nothing of the excitement. He had splashed water over his face and eyes to remove the traces of tears, and close by the running water had sat down to get control of himself before he should go back to his mother and the house. As he came slowly up the incline carrying the pail he saw a crowd about the door. For an instant he stood motionless, then dropped his pail and ran swiftly toward the house.
Was it—-could it be—news of—of Joe?
When he was nearly to the house one of the children leaping and capering about stepped aside, and he saw a tall, slender boyish figure clasped in his mother’s arms. Lige, tall young pioneer that he was, almost fainted. When the world righted itself he gave a hoarse, hysterical shout and dashing forward precipitated himself into Joe’s arms.
Perhaps it was his shout of “Joe, Joe, Joe!” perhaps the general hubbub, that awoke Nina, who, exhausted by the trials through which she had passed, had been charged to remain in bed.
Startled by the noise she woke in a panic, leaped out of bed and ran to the window. What she saw outside held her there paralyzed, believing that she had lost her senses.
Joe glancing up saw here there, her eyes wide and fixed, her face white as a snowdrop, her head framed in a nimbus of golden hair.
Never while life lasted did he forget the picture.
“Nina!” he shouted, joy, amazement, incredulity in his voice.
The girl meanwhile was staring at him as if he were a ghost.
“J—J—Jo-oe!” her lips framed the word rather than spoke it. Then again, as if she could not believe the evidence of her senses—“Joe!”
Ruth ran to her and caught her in her arms. “Yes, Nina, yes, darling, don’t look so scared. It isn’t his ghost, it’s just himself, our own darling, blessed, precious Joesy home again, alive and well, and not dead at all!”
Joe broke from his mother’s arms.
“Nina, Nina,” he cried stretching his arms toward the window, “oh, Nina, how did you get here? How did you escape? Oh, I’ve worried and worried and worried about you! Oh, thank God, you got home! I thought that the Sioux or Red Snake had got you again!”
Nina leaned from the window gasping and panting.
“But you, Joe—you—I thought you were dead! I saw you fall—I saw you slide into the water—and when I went to look for you you were gone. Oh, Joe, where did you go? I thought you were dead——”
She burst into a fit of hysterical weeping, and Ruth drew her back into the bedroom. A few minutes later, dressed, and a bit more calm, she burst from the door and ran into Joe’s waiting arms.
It took a vast amount of talking, of telling and explaining and exclaiming, and tears and chills and thrills, before the whole story was complete, its two parts pieced together and all the events that had caused so much suffering and anxiety made plain.
It was a long time before Joe, with his hand clasped in his father’s, his mother’s arm about his neck, Ruth and Sara on either knee, Nina at his feet, and Lige and Sam and Paul and David crowded close up to him, had time to remember Pashepaho.
When he did remember him he ran to the door and called him. The handsome young chief was standing outside, his face wreathed in smiles.
Joe called to him joyously.
“Come on in here, Pashepaho,” he shouted, “I want you to come in and join in the jamboree, and see all these blessed people I’ve been talking to you so much about.” Then clasping Pashepaho’s hand, “Listen, folks, I wouldn’t be here now having you all make such a fuss over me if it wasn’t for this fellow. If Pashepaho hadn’t nursed me and tended me and doctored me like a brother I’d have been a dead one long ago.”
You may be sure that Pashepaho received a warm and cordial welcome from the family. When Mr. and Mrs. Peniman shook his hand and thanked him with deep emotion for all he had done for their son tears sprang to his eyes. But when the children gathered about him and pulled the feathers on his dress and tugged at the beads and laid timid fingers upon his tomahawk he smiled, gave Sam his war-bonnet to look at, took little David upon his knee, and was soon happy and at home amongst them.