PAGE 2
The Recluse
by
“It was a grey morning when they told him of this disaster that had befallen him. He was a great chief, and he ruled many tribes on the North Pacific Coast; but what was his greatness now? His young wife had borne him twins, and was sobbing out her anguish in the little fir-bark lodge near the tidewater.
“Beyond the doorway gathered many old men and women–old in years, old in wisdom, old in the lore and learning of their nations. Some of them wept, some chanted solemnly the dirge of their lost hopes and happiness, which would never return because of this calamity; others discussed in hushed voices this awesome thing, and for hours their grave council was broken only by the infant cries of the two boy-babies in the bark lodge, the hopeless sobs of the young mother, the agonized moans of the stricken chief–their father.
“‘Something dire will happen to the tribe,’ said the old men in council.
“‘Something dire will happen to him, my husband,’ wept the afflicted young mother.
“‘Something dire will happen to us all,’ echoed the unhappy father.
“Then an ancient medicine man arose, lifting his arms, outstretching his palms to hush the lamenting throng. His voice shook with the weight of many winters, but his eyes were yet keen and mirrored the clear thought and brain behind them, as the still trout pools in the Capilano mirror the mountain tops. His words were masterful, his gestures commanding, his shoulders erect and kindly. His was a personality and an inspiration that no one dared dispute, and his judgment was accepted as the words fell slowly, like a doom.
“‘It is the olden law of the Squamish that lest evil befall the tribe the sire of twin children must go afar and alone into the mountain fastnesses, there by his isolation and his loneliness to prove himself stronger than the threatened evil, and thus to beat back the shadow that would otherwise follow him and all his people. I, therefore, name for him the length of days that he must spend alone fighting his invisible enemy. He will know by some great sign in Nature the hour that the evil is conquered, the hour that his race is saved. He must leave before this sun sets, taking with him only his strongest bow, his fleetest arrows, and going up into the mountain wilderness remain there ten days–alone, alone.’
“The masterful voice ceased, the tribe wailed their assent, the father arose speechless, his drawn face revealing great agony over this seemingly brief banishment. He took leave of his sobbing wife, of the two tiny souls that were his sons, grasped his favorite bow and arrows, and faced the forest like a warrior. But at the end of the ten days he did not return, nor yet ten weeks, nor yet ten months.
“‘He is dead,’ wept the mother into the baby ears of her two boys. ‘He could not battle against the evil that threatened; it was stronger than he–he so strong, so proud, so brave.’
“‘He is dead,’ echoed the tribesmen and the tribeswomen. ‘Our strong, brave chief, he is dead.’ So they mourned the long year through, but their chants and their tears but renewed their grief; he did not return to them.
“Meanwhile, far up the Capilano the banished chief had built his solitary home; for who can tell what fatal trick of sound, what current of air, what faltering note in the voice of the Medicine Man had deceived his alert Indian ears? But some unhappy fate had led him to understand that his solitude must be of ten years’ duration, not ten days, and he had accepted the mandate with the heroism of a stoic. For if he had refused to do so his belief was that although the threatened disaster would be spared him, the evil would fall upon his tribe. Thus was one more added to the long list of self-forgetting souls whose creed has been, ‘It is fitting that one should suffer for the people.’ It was the world-old heroism of vicarious sacrifice.