Read The People: And Other Uncollected Fiction for Free Online Page A

crying gevalt after he had been slapped red and raw by them, and chastened by the objectivity of the chief, Yozip forcibly biting his lips managed to keep his mouth shut.
    Bessie whinnied in sympathy and was severely whacked on the rump by Indian Head. She moaned, shivered, and took the blow without moving. Yozip felt embarrassed for his faithful black steed.
    The chief then touched Yozip’s left eye with his arthritic pinky. He blew on it. The eye was bone dry.
    The medicine man in the purple headdress that resembled a dish of rags performed a frenetic short dance and uttered three bleating cries at the sky.

    Then the old chief, walking backward in his soiled feathered bonnet, hoarsely announced the next contest.
     
     
    Indian Head explained the rules of the bow-and-arrow game. Yozip would shoot first at the red apple Indian Head was about to place on his head. Should Yozip miss, Indian Head would then shoot at the red apple on Yozip’s head. The purpose was to hit the apple, not the head. Indian Head smiled mysteriously, and Yozip then had serious doubts about his future. This bothered him, because essentially he was an ambitious man who wanted to live a long, accomplished life.
    Yozip could barely manipulate the heavy sheep-horn bow Indian Head gave him to shoot with. To pull the sinewed gut string burdened his heart. He envisioned himself falling to the ground in weakness. Again he heard snorting and derision among the braves.
    The chief lectured them on courtesy and then told Yozip what he had said.
    Yozip lifted his heavy bow. His arrow, after a slow shot, rose ten feet and skidded along the ground before it came to a stop.
    No one laughed.
    The betting commenced again and Yozip thought the odds on him could not be very high.
    In the next round Indian Head, pulling his bow so strongly that his fingers quivered, seemed to be carefully aiming at Yozip’s skull. It occurred to the ex-peddler that he was on his way to being a dead man.
    The arrow, shot high into the air, eventually descended before his face; he felt it cut the tip of his nostril as the apple fell off his head. Yozip was slightly wounded by the barbed edge of the expiring arrow, and thus a bit of flesh was snipped from the tip of his long nose.
    Blood streamed from the wound.
    A cry went up from the braves in the tribe.
    The chief called the blood a magic sign.
    “Your nose is pierced but you are not wounded.”

    “My nose bleeds,” Yozip cried, touching the blood. He feared he would be disfigured for life.
    The medicine man bent to inspect the fleshly bleeding, but he saw nothing to get excited about. He hawked up a glob of phlegm and caught it in his hand. Then he spoke aloud to the Great Spirit, but apparently the Great Spirit advised him to omit the spittle.
    The chief told Yozip to rub earth on his bleeding nose. The earth would stop the blood.
    Yozip followed his advice. He then picked up the heavy bow for his second shot. To everyone’s surprise the arrow rose from fifty yards away quickly and strongly in a straight line toward Indian Head’s cranium.
    One Blossom shrieked, but Indian Head, after giving the matter a moment of serious consideration, was able to catch the expiring arrow with his left hand.
    The braves mumbled and grunted.
    The chief then sternly informed One Blossom that her cry had interfered with the sacred initiation and she would be suitably punished.
    The girl gasped, for a war-painted brave was rising from the bushes and aiming his massive arrow squarely at Yozip’s head.
    From a tall tree nearby a shrieking eagle rose aloft and flew with talons and wings outstretched at the painted brave with the shaven skull who had aimed to shoot Yozip in the back of his head. The other braves grabbed for their bows and arrows and swiftly shot them into the sky. Shaved Head, cursed by the chief, dived into a nearby muddy pond. The Indians loosed a stream of arrows at the black eagle and bloodied its feathers as the bird rose with