by Max Brand
“Perhaps all women must be a little sad if they are to be beautiful.”
“Do you think so?”
“Maisry . . . you see that my Cheyenne tongue can say white words?”
“You are half white, you know.”
“My blood is all red.”
“I know that.”
“Do you hear that bird singing?”
“I hear the black bird.”
“He is free,” said Blue Bird.
“Yes, perfectly free.”
“You are not free,” said the Cheyenne.
“No?”
“You are not free as Red Hawk is. He is strong and brave and he is as free as the black bird . . . if you would let him be.”
“You think that I tie him?” asked Maisry.
“Ah, my sister,” said the Indian, “don’t you see that you do? Your god is not his god. Your skin is his color, but your heart is not his color. You put birds in cages, but the meadowlark is not in a cage. He is unhappy . . . lines come between his eyes when he is with you. But with me there are no lines between his eyes when he is with me.”
“Is he very happy with you?”
“For me he went into the Valley of Death.”
“What is that?”
“The Valley of Death. He went into it. The god led him. He carried me from the Valley of Death.”
“He carried you in his arms?”
“Yes. In his arms. And through the cave, through the house of the god. I was dead.”
“What are you saying, Blue Bird?”
“Through the house of the god.”
Her face flamed suddenly. Through the golden obscurity of her skin the color rushed. And Maisry watched carefully.
The Indian girl went on: “Into my dead body he called back the life. The first that I knew was his voice above me. I was in the blue of the Happy Hunting Grounds and he called me back to the earth. His voice called me, praying to Sweet Medicine. Do you know who Sweet Medicine is?”
“Yes. Did Rusty pray for you?”
“That hurts you, doesn’t it?”
Maisry drew a quick, deep breath. “You see, Blue Bird, we both love him. We should be honest and tell one another what we think.”
“Well,” said Blue Bird, “does it hurt you . . . the thing I have just said?”
“Yes,” said Maisry, and flushed.
They both were warm of face, staring at each other.
“Do you hate me?” asked Blue Bird.
“Yes,” said Maisry. “No,” she added.
“Ai, ai,” said Blue Bird. “Why should we both like him so much? There are many men in the world. There are more men than there are buffalo, Red Hawk says, and yet we find only one.”
“Yes,” said Maisry, “that is true.”
They stared at one another again.
Blue Bird said: “I am going to cry. Cheyennes should not cry. But I cannot help it.”
Maisry watched her with a cold face. Blue Bird folded her arms across her face. She made no sound. Her body gently rocked to and fro, and the agony was a silent thing.
Maisry got up and went to her. She sat beside the Indian and put on arm around her. Suddenly the weight of Blue Bird slumped against her.
Blue Bird sobbed openly: “I have seen a great many taller and stronger warriors.”
“Yes,” said Maisry.
“I have seen great chiefs with many scalps.”
“Yes,” said Maisry.
“I have seen warriors with the riches of a thousand horses,” said Blue Bird.
“Of course you have,” answered Maisry. “And men like that have wanted to marry you.”
“Yes, they have,” said Blue Bird.
“And still you think of him?”
“Yes, I think of him. The god compels me.”
They were silent for a moment.
Maisry said: “Are you happier now?”
Blue Bird was drying her eyes. “I have been very weak,” she answered. “Now I am better.”
“Tell me, Blue Bird, about that Valley of Death . . . do you mean that you were very ill . . . or was it actually the valley where the Cheyennes make their sacrifices?”
“It was that valley,” said the Indian.
Maisry reached out a hand toward her and left the gesture suspended in air for a moment.
“He carried you out of that? But how could he?” she asked.
“The god is his companion. He can do everything that the god wishes him to do. I can’t talk any more about it or Sweet Medicine will freeze up my blood and turn me to dead stone. Maisry, there is another valley near the Valley of Death. It is the Sacred Valley where Sweet Medicine lives.
“I went to the entrance to that valley, just a little while ago, and called to the god and called to Red Hawk and begged them to stop the Cheyennes on the warpath and keep them from fighting with the white people. The god would not hear me . . . Red Hawk would not hear me. . . .”
“Is that where he lives?”
“I can’t tell you that,” said the Indian. “I can’t tell you anything I know about that. I can only say that if you went to the Sacred Valley and called, surely Red Hawk would come out in answer to your voice. I am only a dark-faced Indian. It is you that he loves. He would come and he could turn back the Cheyennes from the warpath. Will you go with me?”
Maisry, listening with eyes of desperate interest, exclaimed: “But the two of us . . . to ride alone through an Indian country . . .!”
“There are not many Pawnees. Most of them are Cheyennes, and I could make you safe from all the Cheyenne warriors. Look . . . you have a very good horse.”
She pointed out the window toward the pasture in which stood a blood-red mare, one of those rare bays whose skin seems actually to be dyed by the life stream.
“I have a good pony, also,” said Blue Bird. “Who could catch us, if we traveled mostly at night? Will you come, Maisry?”
The thought of the prairie seemed to Maisry like the thought of a wild sea, filled with danger. But every day of her life in Witherell had been a barren wilderness since the death of her father. And suddenly lifting her head she said: “Yes, I’ll go.”
“Good!” cried Blue Bird. “Now? Will you come now?”
“Now . . . this moment,” said Maisry.
Chapter Twenty-Two
An ounce of gold could buy a great many things in the town of Witherell, but on the equipment of his expedition Charlie Galway expended the last speck of gold dust he had gotten in the Sacred Valley and from the robes he had traded with the Cheyennes. He spent so much organizing the outfit that people no longer referred to him as Charlie. He now was “Captain” Galway, a title that he could keep the rest of his life if he used a little discretion.
He spent his money freely, not that he was the sort of a man who used possessions with a free hand, but because he was sure that for every cent he spent now, he would have a hundredweight of gold in the future. He had drawn together exactly twenty-five men for the expedition. His advertising had been unlike that which ever preceded another journey into the prairies.
He had asked, simply, for men who were young and strong, good shots and riders, and experienced in the ways of Indians and animals on the plains. He wanted these men for one month and offered them not a penny of pay, only a vague promise that they would come to wealth if they followed his guidance.
He stipulated with each adventurer who came to him that a tenth part of any loot or possessions that were derived from the journey should become his property. As for the goal of the journey, he had not a word to say.
These words of Galway attracted the curious, and Witherell always was filled with adventurous young fellows who were ready for any sort of excitement. At first, a mere handful would enlist, taking Galway’s solemn oath in the presence of others—an oath never to leave the expedition and to stand by the companions of the journey to the death. But when the town saw that Galway was buying five strong covered wagons for the inland voyage, together with ho
rses and mules enough to pull the loads, the village grew more interested.
For those five wagons were loaded with all sorts of necessities, and particularly with lead and gunpowder for the twenty-five excellent new rifles that Galway had bought. It was clear that in this expedition fighting might be expected—fighting and digging, since there were plenty of shovels and picks. But the rest remained a mystery and for the very sake of the mystery the best men came forward to join the little army.
Exactly twenty-four men were chosen by Galway from the volunteers. He made the twenty-fifth.
Only one purchase was made in total secrecy, and that was wood to make a number of sluice boxes. The rest of the buying was public knowledge, and the entire town of Witherell turned out to watch the expedition start. From the side of the river, where the two stacks of the riverboat rose high into the air, the column of wagons and riders started through an outburst of cheers.
Every man had a long rifle balanced across the pommel of his saddle, and nearly all of them carried revolvers, too, and long knives in whose use they were expert either to take the hide off a buffalo or to slash the throat of a man. They were a wild lot. The oldest of them was under thirty, although a good many wore beards that made them seem experienced men of middle age. The youngest were still in their teens, but strong and mature and eager to make up for youth by a more savage daring.
On the whole the men of Galway were perfectly fitted for fighting Indians because not one of the tribes could have picked out a group of men more desperate, more fierce, more totally wild. Many of them already had been outlawed in cities farther East; the rest had drifted West in the knowledge that the open frontier was the place for them to use their wits and their hands.
Charlie Galway, as the train wound up through the hills away from the town, looked over his outfit with a sort of grim pride. He felt that it was a perfect tool, and that his was the perfect hand to wield it. He felt, also, that sudden elevation of mind that comes to a man who is about to make history. He had not a single regret or shame.
His word given to Sabin did not weigh on him in the least. Sabin was too much like an Indian to count. The red men had to go down. The wave of “civilization” had to wash deeper into the land, deeper and all the way across it, to the western ocean.
So the train dipped down from the hills into the green plain and moved steadily across it like a great, unjointed, but living snake.
All was done in good order. Ahead of the main body three of the best shots on the best horses felt the way. Three more on either side guarded the flanks in the distance and a third trio hung in the rear. It would have been hard to surprise an organism whose nervous system extended so far on all sides. But in case of a sudden attack, at least once a day Galway had his men practice the classic defense maneuver of the plains. At a blast of a horn, the head of the procession turned to the left. The rear of the train pulled out in the same direction, and the five wagons rapidly formed in a circle, like a caterpillar coiling head to tail. Inside that wall men and horses gathered. In Galway’s mind, a hundred Indians hardly would dare to attempt the storming of such a place of strength.
They were two days out before the first sign of danger appeared. Then, on the edge of the sky, appeared a little column of half a dozen riders. The bend of their backs proved that they were Indians, riding with shorter stirrups than white men ever used. One glimpse of them was enough to send a thrill through the nerves of the hundred men from Witherell. And after that, all of the wagon train kept a sharp look-out.
Scouts began to come in at least once an hour to report that Indians were visible to right, to left, before, behind.
Well before the wagons pulled through the narrow mouth of the Sacred Valley, there would be fighting, of course. Galway knew that, since the Cheyennes never would give up their holy land without a struggle. But he felt equally certain that the Indians never would be able to guess the destination of the train until it was almost at the mouth of the valley.
If they attacked as the whites entered the ravine, they could be beaten off, no doubt, and, once inside, half a dozen rifles could securely plug the mouth of the gulley and keep a whole world of Indians outside. In the meantime, there would be plenty of food and water within the Sacred Valley, and there would be plenty of occupation in washing the gold from the soil.
The patience of the Indians would finally end. And at last the laden wagons—wagons more preciously burdened than any that ever had rolled across the green of the plains—would come streaming out and pass back to Witherell and a high carouse.
The more Galway contemplated his plan, the more perfect it appeared to him. He could see no possible means of failure, unless the Cheyennes actually managed to make a surprise attack. That he did not expect. As a rule the Cheyennes kept on good terms with the whites, and, although they were keeping the wagon train under close observation, it was unlikely that they would fight unless they were grossly offended.
For that reason, Galway gave the strictest orders that no attempts should be made against any of the Indians who skirted the course that the train was pursuing. That was why a wild rage rushed up into his brain when he heard a chorus of exclamations from the men who rode beside the wagons.
He was inside the powder wagon at the moment, broaching a keg of the stuff in order to replenish some half-empty horns, but, when he heard the men crying out that Jerry Pike was bringing in a captive Indian, he was out of the wagon in a storming temper, at once.
And there, sure enough, he saw Jerry Pike coming with a captive led on an Indian pony beside him. It was only a girl. When Galway made sure of that, half of his anger left him at once. He even smiled a little.
Jerry Pike waved his hat and shouted from the distance. He came up, yelling: “I got a Cheyenne girl for you, boys, and a right pretty one, at that! Take a look at what I found running around loose on the prairie, Galway!”
The captain took that look and then shouted in his turn. “Jerry,” he said, “d’you know what you’ve done?”
“Sure I do,” said Jerry. “I’ve caught a beauty and I’m gonna keep her. I’m gonna make a squaw out of her. I’ve hunted far enough to find my woman. This is her.”
Galway shook his head. “She goes along with us, but she doesn’t go as a squaw. Pike, this is Blue Bird, and she’s about the biggest medicine that the Cheyennes have. They’ll never dare to lay a finger on us while we have Blue Bird. . . . How did you find her?”
“Why, I seen an antelope up the wind and I figgered that a snack of antelope meat would be right good, so I slicked off my hoss and got into the tall grass to stalk. And on the way I come onto a little hollow where a pair of girls was hiding out . . . a white girl and this one.
“The white girl got to her mare in time to run. But I snagged this one and brought her back with me. She looks better than venison to me. Hai . . . Cheyenne . . . Blue Bird . . . whatever your name is. . . . How about you being squaw and Jerry Pike’ll be heap big warrior, eh? Her brain’s gone to sleep, Captain. You see the wood in her face and no sense at all.”
“Leave her alone,” said Galway. “We’re going to wrap her up in cotton and treat her fine. I tell you, she means the kind of luck we’ve all been looking for. Understand? Blue Bird, you’re as safe as you can be. Don’t worry a mite about anything. Who was the white girl along with you?”
Blue Bird turned an expressionless face toward him, her eye remained perfectly dead. He was no more to her than the distant edge of the horizon.
A crowd had gathered around them, riders and men on foot, prying at the beauty of the girl with keen, animal eyes.
Galway made a brief speech, but one that was to the point. He said: “Boys, we’re in Cheyenne land, now. And you know what that means. The Cheyennes are gonna be pretty sour when they find out we’ve taken Blue Bird, and they’re gonna come swooping down in a flock around us.
“But they won’t dare to touch us for fear we’ll take it out on Blue Bird. You know what she is? She’s the on
ly living Cheyenne that ever was in the Sacred Valley. She’s as holy as church on Sundays, to the whole tribe. She’s the one that brought them the water in the big drought. If a man touches the hem of her skirt, he has luck for a year. Mind you, now . . . no foolish business.”
“I go and find her and then you take her away from me,” said Jerry Pike, scowling. “What do I get out of this, anyway?”
“I’ve got a brand new six-shooter Colt for you, Jerry,” said Galway.
“Have you?” shouted Pike. “Gimme it, then. I’d rather have one of them new guns than a whole tribe of squaws.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The blood-red mare whipped Maisry away from the long reach of Jerry Pike, and right across the prairie in a red flash the mare bore her. Three dizzy miles of sprinting, and then the horse stopped, down-headed, utterly winded by that wild effort. And not until then did Maisry’s mind clear.
She could think of Blue Bird, then, with a sudden regret that she had not been able to help her companion. She pulled at the hanging head of the red mare and looked back, and before her she saw half a dozen Indians jogging their ponies casually toward her.
Fear slid with her breathing down her throat, nauseated her; she was helpless. She could feel the tremor of utter fatigue in the body of the mare and knew that the knees of the bay were quivering. She could not run. She could only remain there in the saddle and study the danger as it developed before her. Even if the mare had been fresh as the morning, it seemed to her impossible to escape from the wild-headed, light-limbed Indian ponies.
As they came closer, the mare lifted her head and snorted with fear. There was a last terrible temptation to flee no matter how spent the mare might be. That temptation she fought down.
All Indian braves at all times, she knew, were dangerous. But these warriors were painted for the warpath. The streaks of paint—yellow, red, blue, black, purple—robbed them of all human semblance. They were Cheyennes. She could be grateful that she spoke that tongue. The slowness with which they approached gave her a greater hope still. But as they came up, they were pointing her out to one another.