So Amaledi and Panther painted their faces red and took their spears and faced each other, right in front of the chief’s house. Amaledi was just as good as Panther, but finally he got nicked on the arm. Before the poison could act, they got into some hand-to-hand wrestling, and the spears got mixed up. Now Panther took a couple of hits. Yes, with the poisoned spear.
Meanwhile Amaledi’s mother got thirsty and went over and took a drink, before anyone could stop her, from the poisoned gourd. Pretty soon she fell down. Amaledi and Panther stopped fighting and rushed over, but she was already dead.
By now they were both feeling the poison themselves. Panther fell down and died. So did Amaledi, but before he went down he got his uncle with the poisoned spear. So in the end everyone died.
You do?
Well, I suppose you had to be there.
And so ’tis afoote: to-morrow night we are to perform. Thank God Burbage cannot be there to witnesse it: for it were a Question which should come first, that he dye of Laughter, or I of Shame.
It was a warm and pleasant night. Everyone was there, even Otter. By the time it was dark all the seats were full and many people were standing, or sitting on the ground.
The platform had only been finished a few days before—with Bigkiller complaining about the waste of timber and labor, that could have gone into strengthening the town’s defenses—and it looked very fine. Locust and Blackfox had hung some reed mats on poles to represent the walls of houses, and also to give us a place to wait out of sight before going on. To keep the crowd from getting restless, Spearshaker had asked Dotsuya to have some Bird Clan men sing and dance while we were lighting the torches and making other last preparations.
Then it was time to begin.
What? Oh, no, I was not an akta. By now I knew the words to the whole plei, from having translated and repeated them so many times. So I stood behind a reed screen and called out the words, in a voice too low for the crowd to hear, when anyone forgot what came next.
Spearshaker, yes. He was the ghost. He had put some paint on his face that made it even whiter, and he did something with his voice that made the hair stand up on your neck.
But in fact everyone did very well, much better than I had expected. The only bad moment came when Amaledi—that was Tsigeyu’s son Hummingbird—shouted, “Na! Dili, dili!”—“There! A skunk, a skunk!”—and slammed his war club into the wall of the “chief’s house,” forgetting it was really just a reed mat. And Beartrack, who was being Quolonisi, took such a blow to the head that he was out for the rest of the plei. But it didn’t matter, since he had no more words to speak, and he made a very good dead man for Amaledi to drag out.
And the people loved it, all of it. How they laughed and laughed! I never heard so many laugh so hard for so long. At the end, when Amaledi fell dead between his mother and Panther and the platform was covered with corpses, there was so much howling and hooting you would have taken it for a hurricane. I looked out through the mats and saw Tsigeyu and Bigkiller holding on to each other to keep from falling off the bench. Warriors were wiping tears from their eyes and women were clutching themselves between the legs and old Dotsuya was lying on the ground kicking her feet like a baby.
I turned to Spearshaker, who was standing beside me. “See,” I said. “And you were afraid they wouldn’t understand it!”
After that everything got confused for a while. Locust and Blackfox rushed up and dragged Spearshaker away, and the next time I saw him he was down in front of the platform with Tsigeyu embracing him and Bigkiller slapping him on the back. I couldn’t see his face, which was hidden by Tsigeyu’s very large front.
By then people were making a fuss over all of us. Even me. A Paint Clan woman, not bad-looking for her age, took me away for some attention. She was limber and had a lot of energy, so it was late by the time I finally got home.
Spearshaker was there, sitting by the fire. He didn’t look up when I came in. His face was so pale I thought at first he was still wearing his ghost paint.
I said, “Gusdi nusdi? Is something wrong?”
“They laughed,” he said. He didn’t sound happy about it.
“They laughed,” I agreed. “They laughed as they have never laughed before, every one of them. Except for Otter, and no one has ever seen him laugh.”
I sat down beside him. “You did something fine tonight, Spearshaker. You made the People happy. They have a hard life, and you made them laugh.”
He made a snorting sound. ‘Yes. They laughed to see us making fools of ourselves. Perhaps that is good.”
“No, no.” I saw it now. “Is that what you think? That they laughed because we did the plei so badly?”
I put my hand on his shoulder and turned him to face me. “My friend, no one there tonight ever saw a plei before, except for you. How would they know if it was bad? It was certainly the best plei they ever saw.”
He blinked slowly, like a turtle. I saw his eyes were red.
“Believe me, Spearshaker,” I told him, “they were laughing because it was such a funny story. And that was your doing.”
His expression was very strange indeed. “They thought it comical?”
“Well, who wouldn’t? All those crazy people up there, killing each other—and themselves—and then that part at the end, where everyone gets killed!” I had to stop and laugh, myself, remembering. “I tell you,” I said when I had my breath back, “even though I knew the whole thing by memory, I nearly lost control of myself a few times there.”
I got up. “Come, Spearshaker. You need to go to sleep. You have been working too hard.”
But he only put his head down in his hands and made some odd sounds in his throat, and muttered some words I did not know. And so I left him there and went to bed.
If I live until the mountains fall, I will never understand white men.
If I liue vntil our Saviour’s returne, I shall neuer vnderstande Indians. Warre they count as Sport, and bloody Murther an occasion of Merriment: ’tis because they hold Life itselfe but lightly, and think Death no greate matter neyther: and so that which we call Tragick, they take for Comedie. And though I be damned for’t, I cannot sweare that they haue not the Right of it.
Whatever happened that night, it changed something in Spearshaker. He lived with us for many more years, but never again did he make a plei for us.
That was sad, for we had all enjoyed the Amaledi story so much, and were hoping for more. And many people tried to get Spearshaker to change his mind—Tsigeyu actually begged him; I think it was the only time in her life she ever begged anyone for anything—but it did no good. He would not even talk about it.
And at last we realized that his medicine had gone, and we left him in peace. It is a terrible thing for a didahnvwisgi when his power leaves him. Perhaps his ancestors’ spirits were somehow offended by our plei. I hope not, since it was my idea.
That summer Ninekiller’s daughter Cricket became Spearshaker’s wife. I gave them my house, and moved in with the Paint Clan woman. I visited my friend often, and we talked of many things, but of one thing we never spoke.
Cricket told me he still made his talking marks, from time to time. If he ever tried to make another plei, though, he never told anyone.