Day after day they plodded onward, and the cold grew. It snowed again, and this time it did not go away. The Old One lagged farther and farther behind, and each day it took him longer to reach the fire.
The boy did not meet their eyes now, for they looked to him, and he had nothing to promise.
“There was a path of light,” the Old One muttered. “They followed the path.”
He drew his worn blanket about his thin shoulders. “It is the Moon of the Limbs of Trees Broken by Snow,” he whispered, “that was the time.”
“What time, Old One?” The boy tried to be patient.
“The time of the path. They followed the path.”
“We have seen no path, Old One.”
“The path was light. No man had walked where the path lay.”
“Why, then, did they follow? Were they fools?”
“They followed the path because they heard and they believed.”
“Heard what? Believed in what?”
“I do not know. It came while I slept. I do not know what they believed, only that they believed.”
“I believe we are lost,” Small Sister said.
The mother looked to the boy. He was the man, although but a small man, and alone. “In the morning we will go on,” he said.
The Old One arose. “Come,” he said. Wondering, the boy followed.
Out in the night they went, stopping where no firelight was. The Old One lifted his staff. “There!” he said. “There lies the path!”
“I see no path,” the boy said, “only a star.”
“The star is the path,” the Old One said, “if you believe.”
It was a bright star, hanging in the southern sky. The boy looked at it, and his lips trembled. He had but twelve summers. Yet he was the man, and he was afraid.
“The star is the path,” the Old One said.
“How can one believe in a star?” the boy protested.
“You do not have to believe in the star. They traveled for a reason. We travel for another. But you can believe in yourself, believe in the good you would do. The men of the star were long ago and not like us. It was only a dream.”
The Old One went back to the fire and left the boy alone. They trusted him, and he did not trust himself. They had faith, and he had none. He led them into a wilderness—to what?
He had wandered, hoping. He had found nothing. He had longed, but the longing was empty. He found no place for planting, no food nor fuel.
He looked again. Was not that one star brighter than all the rest? Or did he only believe it so?
The Old One had said, “They followed a star.”
He looked at the star. Then stepping back of a tall spear of yucca, he looked across it at the star. Then breaking off another spear, he set it in the sand and lined it up on the star so he would know the direction of the star when dawn came.
To lead them, he must believe. He would believe in the star.
When morning came, they took up their packs. Only the Old One sat withdrawn, unmoving. “It is enough,” he said. “I can go no further.”
“You will come. You taught me to have faith; you, too, must have it.”
Day followed day, and night followed night. Each night the boy lined up his star with a peak, a tree, or a rock. On three of the days they had no food, and two days were without water. They broke the spines from cactus and sucked on the pulp from the thick leaves.
Small Sister’s feet were swollen and the flesh broken. “It is enough,” his mother said. “We can go no further.”
They had come to a place where cottonwoods grew. He dug a hole in the streambed and found a little water. They soaked cottonwood leaves and bound them to Small Sister’s feet. “In the morning,” he said, “we will go on.”
“I cannot,” Small Sister said.
With dead branches from the cottonwoods he built a fire. They broiled the flesh of a terrapin found on the desert. Little though there was, they shared it.
The boy walked out in the darkness alone. He looked up and the star was there. “All right,” he said.
When the light came, he shouldered his pack, and they looked at him. He turned to go, and one by one they followed. The Old One was the last to rise.
Now the land was broken by canyons. There was more cedar, occasionally a piöon. It snowed in the night, and the ground was covered, so they found only those seeds that still hung in their dry pods. They were very few.
Often they waited for the Old One. The walking was harder now, and the boy’s heart grew small within him. At last they stopped to rest, and his mother looked at him: “It is no use. I cannot go on.”
Small Sister said nothing and the Old One took a long time coming to where they waited.
“Do you stay then?” the boy said. “I will go on.”
“If you do not come back?”
“Then you are better without me,” he said. “If I can, I will come.”
Out of their sight he sat down and put his head in his hands. He had failed them. The Old One’s medicine had failed. Yet he knew he must try. Small though he was, he was the man. He walked on, his thoughts no longer clear. Once he fell, and again he caught himself on a rock before falling. He straightened, blinking to clear his vision.
On the sand before him was a track, the track of a deer. He walked on and saw other tracks, those of a raccoon, and the raccoon liked water. Not in two months had he seen the track of an animal. They led away down the canyon.
He went out on the rocks and caught himself abruptly, almost falling over the rim. It was a limestone sink, and it was filled with water. He took up a stone and dropped it, and it hit the pool and sank with a deep, rich, satisfying sound. The well was deep and wide, with a stream running from one side.
He went around the rim and lay down flat to drink of the stream. Something stirred near him, and he looked up quickly.
They were there: his mother, Small Sister, and the Old One. He stood up, very straight, and he said, “This is our place; we will stop here.”
The boy killed a deer, and they ate. He wiped his fingers on his buckskin leggings and said, “Those who sat upon the beasts? What did they find, following their star?”
“A cave that smelled of animals where a baby lay on dry grass. The baby’s father and mother were there, and some other men wearing skins, who stood by with bowed heads.”
“And the shining ones who sat upon the beasts?”
“They knelt before the baby and offered it gifts.”
“It is a strange story,” the boy said, “and at another time I will listen to it again. Now we must think of planting.”
Moran of the Tigers
* * *
FLASH MORAN TOOK the ball on the Rangers’ thirty yard line, running with his head up, eyes alert. He was a money player, and a ground gainer who took the openings where he found them.
The play was called for off tackle. Murphy had the hole open for him, and Flash put his head down and went through, running like a madman. He hit a two-hundred-pound tackle in the midriff and set him back ten feet and plowed on for nine yards before he was downed.
Higgins called for a pass and Flash dropped back and took the ball. Swindler went around end fast and was cutting over when Flash rifled the ball to him with a pass that fairly smoked. He took it without slowing and started for the end zone. Weaving, a big Ranger lineman missed him, and he went on to be downed on the two yard line by a Ranger named Fenton, a wiry lad new in pro football.
“All right, Flash,” Higgins said as they trotted back. “I’m sending you right through the middle for this one.”
Flash nodded. The ball was snapped, and as Higgins wheeled and shoved it into his middle, he turned sharply and went through the line with a crash of leather that could be heard in the top rows. He went through and he was downed safely in the end zone. He got up as the whistle shrilled, and grinned at Higgins. “Well, there’s another one for Pop. If we can keep this up, the Old Man will be in the money again.”
“Right.” Tom Higgins was limping a little, but grinning. “It’s lucky for him he’s got a loyal bunch. Not a man offered to back out when he laid his cards on the table.”