Edgar Rice Burroughs - Moon 3 - The Red Hawk

VIP免费

2024-12-23 0 0 195.1KB 82 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

The Red Hawk

Edgar Rice Burroughs

CHAPTER I

THE DESERT CLANS

THE January sun beat hotly down upon me as I

reined Red Lightning in upon the summit of a

barren hill and looked down upon the rich land of

plenty that stretched away below me as far as the

eye could see toward the mighty sea that lay a

day's ride, perhaps, to the westward—the sea that

none of us had ever looked upon—the sea that had

become as fabulous as a legend of the ancients

during the almost four hundred years since the

Moon Men had swept down upon us and

overwhelmed the Earth in their mad and bloody

carnival of revolution.

In the near distance the green of the orange

groves mocked us from below, and great patches

that were groves of leafless nut trees, and there

were sandy patches toward the south that were

vineyards waiting for the hot suns of April and

May before they, too, broke into riotous,

tantalizing green. And from this garden spot of

plenty a curling trail wound up the mountainside to

the very level where we sat gazing fiercely down

upon this last stronghold of our foes. When the

ancients built that trail it must have been wide and

beautiful indeed, but in the centuries that have

elapsed man and the elements have sadly defaced

it. The rains have washed it away in places and the

Kalkars have made great gashes in it to deter us,

their enemies, from invading their sole remaining

lands and driving them into the sea; and upon their

side of the gashes they have built forts where they

keep warriors always. And well for them that they

do. It is so upon every pass that leads down into

their country.

Since fell my great ancestor, Julian 9th, in the

year 2122, at the end of the first uprising against

the Kalkars, we have been driving them slowly

back across the world. That was over three

hundred years ago. For a hundred years they have

held us here, a day's ride from the ocean. Just how

far it is we do not know;

but in 2408 my grandfather, Julian 18th, rode

alone almost to the sea. He had won back almost

to safety when he was discovered and pursued

almost to the tents of his people. There was a

battle, and the Kalkars who had dared invade our

country were destroyed, but Julian 18th died of his

wounds without being able to tell more than that a

wondrous rich country lay between us and the sea,

which was not more than a day's ride distant. A

day's ride, for us, might be anything under a

hundred miles.

We are desert people. Our herds range a vast

territory where feed is scarce that we may be

always near the goal that our ancestors set for us

three centuries ago—the shore of the western sea

into which it is our destiny to drive the remnants of

our former oppressors. In the forests and

mountains of Arizona there is rich pasture, but it is

far from the land of the Kalkars where the last of

the tribe of Or-tis make their last stand, and so we

prefer to live in the desert near our foes, driving

our herds great distances to pasture when the need

arises, rather than to settle down in a comparative

land of plenty, resigning the age-old struggle, the

ancient feud between the house of Julian and the

house of Or-tis.

A light breeze moves the black mane of the

bright bay stallion beneath me. It moves my own

black mane where it falls loose below the buckskin

thong that encircles my head and keeps it from my

eyes. It moves the dangling ends of the Great

Chiefs blanket where it is strapped behind my

saddle. On the twelfth day of the eighth month of

the year just gone this Great Chief's blanket

covered the shoulders of my father, Julian 19th,

from the burning rays of the summer's desert sun. I

was twenty on that day and on that day my father

fell before the lance of an Or-tis in the Great Feud

and I became The Chief of Chiefs.

Surrounding me today, as I sit looking down

upon the land of my enemies, are fifty of the fierce

chieftains of the hundred clans that swear

allegiance to the house of Julian. They are bronzed

and, for the most part, beardless men. The

insignias of their clans are painted in various

colors upon their foreheads, their cheeks, their

breasts. Ochre, they use and blue and white and

scarlet. Feathers rise from the head bands that

confine their hair—the feathers of the vulture, the

hawk and the eagle. I, Julian 20th, wear a single

feather. It is from a red-tailed hawk —the clan-

sign of my family.

We are all garbed similarly. Let me describe The

Wolf, and in his portrait you will see a composite

of us all. He is a sinewy, well built man of fifty,

with piercing, gray-blue eyes beneath straight

brows. His head is well shaped, denoting great

intelligence. His features are strong and powerful

and of a certain fierce cast that might well strike

terror to a foeman's heart— and does, if the Kalkar

scalps that fringe his ceremonial blanket stand for

aught. His breeches, wide below the hips and skin

tight from above the knees down are of the skin of

the buck deer. His soft boots, tied tight about the

calf of each leg, are also of buck. Above the waist

he wears a sleeveless vest of calfskin tanned with

the hair on. The Wolfs is of fawn and white.

Sometimes these vests are ornamented with bits of

colored stone or metal sewn to the hide in various

manners of design. From The Wolfs headband,

just above the right ear, depends the tail of a

timber wolf—the clan-sign of his family.

An oval shield, upon which is painted the head of

a wolf, hangs about this chiefs neck, covering his

back from nape to kidneys. It is a stout, light

shield—a hard wood frame covered with bull hide.

Around its periphery have been fastened the tails

of wolves. In such matters each man, with the

assistance of his women folk, gives rein to his

fancy in the matter of ornamentation. Clan-signs

and chief-signs, however, are sacred. The use of

one to which he is not entitled might spell death

for any man. I say might, because we have no

inflexible laws. We have few laws. The Kalkars

were forever making laws, so we hate them. We

judge each case upon its own merits, and we pay

more attention to what a man intended doing than

what he did.

The Wolf is armed, as are the rest of us, with a

light lance about eight feet in length, a knife and a

straight, two-edged sword. A short, stout bow is

slung beneath his right stirrup leather and a quiver

of arrows is at his saddle bow.

The blades of his sword and his knife and the

metal of his lance tip come from a far place called

Kolrado and are made by a tribe that is famous

because of the hardness and the temper of the

metal of its blades. The Utaws bring us metal, also,

but theirs is inferior and we use it only for the

shoes that protect our horses* feet from the cutting

sands and the rocks of our hard and barren

country.

The Kolrados travel many days to reach us,

coming once in two years. They pass, unmolested,

through the lands of many tribes because they

bring what none might otherwise have and what

we need in our never ending crusade against the

Kalkars. That is the only thread that holds together

the scattered clans and tribes that spread east and

north and south beyond the ken of man. All are

animated by the same purpose—to drive the last of

the Kalkars into the sea.

From the Kolrados we get meager news of clans

beyond them toward the rising sun. Far, far to the

east, they say, so far that in a lifetime no man

might reach it, lies another great sea, and that

there, as here upon the world's western edge, a few

Kalkars are making their last stand. All the rest of

the world has been won back by the people of our

own blood—by Americans.

We are always glad to see the Kolrados come,

for they bring us news of other peoples, and we

welcome the Utaws, too, though we are not a

friendly people, killing all others who come among

us, for fear, chiefly, that they may be spies sent by

the Kalkars. It is handed down from father to son

that this was not always so, and that once the

people of the world went to and fro safely from

place to place and that then all spoke the same

language; but now it is different. The Kalkars

brought hatred and suspicion among us, until now

we trust only the members of our own clans and

tribes.

The Kolrados, from coming often among us, we

can understand, and they can understand us, by

means of a few words and many signs, though

when they speak their own language among

themselves we cannot understand them, except for

an occasional word that is like one of ours. They

say that when the last of the Kalkars is driven from

the world we must live at peace with one another,

but I am afraid that that will never come to pass,

for who would go through life without breaking a

lance or dipping his sword point now and again

into the blood of a stranger? Not The Wolf, I

swear, nor no more The Red Hawk. By The FlagI I

take more pleasure in meeting a stranger upon a

lonely trail than in meeting a friend, for I cannot

set my lance against a friend and feel the swish of

the wind as Red Lightning bears me swiftly down

upon the prey as I crouch in the saddle, nor thrill to

the shock as we strike.

I am The Red Hawk. I am but twenty, yet the

fierce chiefs of a hundred fierce clans bow to my

will. I am a Julian—the twentieth Julian—and

from this year, 2434, I can trace my line back five

hundred and thirty-four years to Julian 1st, who

was born in 1896. From father to son, by word of

mouth, has been handed down to me the story of

every Julian,-and there is no blot upon the shield

of one in all that long line, nor shall there be any

blot upon the shield of Julian 20th. From my fifth

year to my tenth I learned, word for word, as had

my father before me, the deeds of my forebears,

and to hate the Kalkars and the tribe of Or-tis.

This, with riding, was my schooling. From ten to

fifteen I learned to use lance and sword and knife,

and on my sixteenth birthday I rode forth with the

other men—a warrior.

As I sat there this day, looking down upon the

land of the accursed Kalkars, my mind went back

to the deeds of the 15th Julian, who had driven the

Kalkars across the desert and over the edge of

these mountains into the valley below just one

hundred years before I was born, and I turned to

The Wolf and pointed down toward the green

groves and the distant hills and off beyond to

where the mysterious ocean lay.

"For a hundred years they have held us here," I

said. "It is too long."

"It is too long," replied The Wolf.

"When the rains are over The Red Hawk leads

his people into the land of plenty."

The Rock raised his spear and shook it savagely

toward the valley far below. The scalp-lock

fastened just below its metal-shod tip trembled in

the wind. "When the rains are overi" cried The

Rock. His fierce eyes glowed with the fire of

fanaticism.

"The green of the groves we will dye red with

their blood," cried The Rattlesnake.

"With our swords, not our mouths," I said, and

wheeled Red Lightning toward the east. The

Coyote laughed and the others joined with him as

we wound downward out of the hills toward the

desert.

On the afternoon of the following day we came

within sight of our tents where they were pitched

beside the yellow flood of The River. Five miles

before that we had seen a few puffs of smoke rise

from the summit of a hill to the north of us. It told

the camp that a body of horsemen was

approaching from the west. It told us that our

sentry was on duty and that doubtless all was well.

At a signal my warriors formed themselves in two

straight lines, crossing one another at their centers.

A moment later another smoke signal arose

informing the camp that we were friends and us

that our signal had been rightly read.

Presently, in a wild charge, whooping and

brandishing our spears, we charged down among

the tents. Dogs, children and slaves scampered for

safety, the dogs barking, the children and the

slaves yelling and laughing. As we swung

ourselves from our mounts before our tents, slaves

rushed out to seize our bridle reins, the dogs

leaped, growling, upon us in exuberant welcome,

while the children fell upon their sires, their uncles

or their brothers, demanding the news of the ride

or a share in the spoils of conflict or chase. Then

we went in to our women.

I had no wife, but there were my mother and my

two sisters, and I found them awaiting me in the

inner tent, seated upon a low couch that was

covered, as was the floor, with the bright blankets

that our slaves weave from the wool of sheep. I

knelt and took my mother's hand and kissed it and

then I kissed her upon the lips and in the same

fashion I saluted my sisters, the elder first. It is

custom among us; but it is also our pleasure, for

we both respect and love our women. Even if we

did not, we should appear to, if only for the reason

that the Kalkars do otherwise. They are brutes and

swine. We do not permit our women a voice in the

councils of the men, but none the less do they

influence our councils from the seclusion of their

inner tents. It is indeed an unusual mother among

us who does not make her voice heard in the

council ring, through her husband or her sons, and

she does it through the love and respect in which

they hold her and not by scolding and nagging.

They are wonderful, our women. It is for them and

The Flag that we have fought the foe across a

world for three hundred years. It is for them that

we shall go forth and drive him into the sea.

As the slaves prepared the evening meal I

chatted with my mother and my sisters. My two

brothers. The Vulture and Rain Cloud, lay also at

my mother's feet. The Vulture was eighteen, a

splendid warrior, a true Julian. Rain Cloud was

sixteen then, and I think the most beautiful

creature I had ever seen. He had just become a

warrior, but so sweet and lovable was his disposi-

tion that the taking of human life seemed a most

incongruous calling for him, yet he was a Julian

and there was no alternative. Everyone loved him

and respected him too, even though he had never

excelled in feats of arms for which he seemed to

have no relish; but they respected him because

they knew that he was brave and that he would

fight as courageously as any of them, even though

he might have no stomach for it. Personally, I con-

sidered Rain Cloud braver than I, for I knew that

he would do well the thing he hated while I would

be only doing well the thing I loved.

The Vulture resembled me in looks and the love

of blood, so we left Rain Cloud at home to help

guard the women and the children, which was no

disgrace since it is a most honorable and sacred

trust, and we went forth to the fighting when there

was likely to be any, and when there wasn't we

went forth and searched for it. How often have I

ridden the trails leading in across our vast frontiers

longing for sight of a strange horseman against

whom I might bend my lance! We asked no

questions then when we had come close enough to

see the clan-sign of the stranger and to know that

he was of another tribe and likely he was as keen

for the fray as we, otherwise he would have tried

to avoid us. We each drew rein at a little distance

and set his lance, and each called aloud his name,

and then with a mighty oath each bore down upon

the other, and then one rode away with a fresh

scalp-lock, and a new horse to add to his herd,

while the other remained to sustain the vulture and

the coyote.

Two or three of our great, shaggy hounds came

in and sprawled among us as we lay talking with

mother and the two girls, Nallah and Neeta.

Behind my mother and sisters squatted three slave

girls, ready to do their bidding, for our women do

no labor. They ride and walk and swim and keep

their bodies strong and fit that they may bear

mighty warriors, but labor is beneath them as it is

beneath us. We hunt and fight and tend our own

herds, for that is not menial, but all other labor the

slaves perform. We found them here when we

came. They have been here always—a stolid, dark

skinned people, weavers of blankets and baskets,

makers of pottery, tillers of the soil. We are kind to

them and they are happy. The Kalkars, who pre-

ceded us, were not kind to them—it has been

handed down to them from father to son for over a

hundred years that the Kalkars were cruel to them

and they hate their memory, yet, were we to be

driven away by the Kalkars, these simple people

would remain and serve anew their cruel masters,

for they will never leave their soil. They have

strange legends of a far time when great horses of

iron raced across the desert dragging iron tents

filled with people behind them, and they point to

holes in the mountain sides through which these

iron monsters made their way to the green valleys

by the sea, and they tell of men who flew like birds

and as swiftly, but of course we know that such

things were never true and are but the stories that

the old men and the women among them told to

the children for their amusement. However, we

like to listen to them.

I told my mother of my plans to move down into

the valley of the Kalkars after the rains. She was

silent some time before replying.

"Yes, of course," she said; "you would be no

Julian were you not to attempt it. At least twenty

times before in a hundred years have our warriors

gone down in force into the valley of the Kalkars

and been driven back. I wish that you might have

taken a wife and left a son to be Julian 21st before

you set out upon this expedition from which you

may not return. Think well of it, my son, before

you set forth. A year or two will make no great

difference. But you are The Great Chief and if you

decide to go we can but wait here for your return

and pray that all is well with you."

"But you do not understand. Mother," I replied.

"I said that we are going to move down into the

valley of the Kalkars after the rains. I did not say

that we are coming back again. I did not say that

you would remain here and wait for our return.

You will accompany us. The tribe of Julian moves

down into the valley of the Kalkars when the rains

are over, and they take with them their women and

their children and their tents and all their flocks

and herds and every other possession that is

movable, and—they do not return to live in the

desert ever more."

She did not reply, but only sat in thought.

Presently a man-slave came to bid us warriors to

the evening meal. The women and the children eat

this meal within their tents, but the warriors gather

around a great, circular table, called The Council

Ring.

There were a hundred of us there that night.

Flares in the hands of slaves gave us light and

there was light from the cooking fire that burned

within the circle formed by the table. The others

remained standing until I had taken my seat which

was the signal that the eating might begin. Before

each warrior was an earthenware vessel containing

beer and another filled with wine, and there were

slaves whose duty it was to keep these filled,

which was no small task, for we are hearty men

and great drinkers, though there is no drunkenness

among us as there is among the Kalkars. Other

slaves brought meat and vegetables-beef and

mutton, both boiled and broiled, potatoes, beans

and corn, and there were bowls of figs and dried

grapes and dried plums. There were also venison

and bear meat and fish. There was a great deal of

talk and a great deal of laughter, loud and

boisterous, for the evening meal in the home camp

is always a gala event. We ride hard and we ride

often and we ride long. Often we are fighting and

much of the time away from home. Then we have

little to eat and nothing to drink but water, which

is often warm and unclean and always scarce in

our country.

We sit upon a long bench that encircles the outer

periphery of the table and as I took my seat, the

slaves, bearing platters of meat, passed along the

inner rim of the table, and as they came opposite

each warrior he rose, and leaning far across the

board, seized a portion of meat with a thumb and

finger and cut it deftly away with his sharp knife.

The slaves moved in slow procession without

pause and there was a constant gleam and flash of

blades and movement and change of color as the

painted warriors rose and leaned across the table,

the firelight playing upon their beads and metal

ornaments and the gay feathers of their

headdresses. And the noisel

Pacing to and fro behind the warriors were two

or three score shaggy hounds waiting for the

scraps that would presently be tossed them'-large,

savage beasts bred to protect our flocks from

coyote and wolf, hellhound and lion, and capable

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

TheRedHawkByEdgarRiceBurroughsCHAPTERITHEDESERTCLANSTHEJanuarysunbeathotlydownuponmeasIreinedRedLightninginuponthesummitofabarrenhillandlookeddownupontherichlandofplentythatstretchedawaybelowmeasfarastheeyecouldseetowardthemightyseathatlayaday'sride,perhaps,tothewestward—theseathatnoneofushadeverloo...

展开>> 收起<<

Edgar Rice Burroughs - Moon 3 - The Red Hawk.pdf

共82页,预览17页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Edgar Rice Burroughs - Moon 3 - The Red Hawk

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: