The Westerners

by Stewart Edward White

  XI

  THE BEGINNING OF LAFOND'S REVENGE

  The day following the conference, Lone Wolf struck camp. The squawsquickly removed and rolled into convenient bundles the skin coveringsof the tepees. The poles of the latter were strapped on each side ofthe ponies in such a manner that, their ends dragging on the ground, asort of litter was formed for the transportation of the household goodsand the younger children. Before the sun was an hour high, the caravanwas under way.

  From this, the South Fork of the Cheyenne, the main band, under LoneWolf, were to push directly through to the Big Horn. Lafond,Rain-in-the-Face, and the warriors detailed for the expedition were tocarry out the adventure of Pah-sap-pah to the half-breed'ssatisfaction, and were then to rejoin the main body as soon as possible.

  The smaller band cut in to the Black Hills shortly after daybreak onemorning. It rode up Spanish Gulch a little before noon.

  Most of these warriors had never before entered the dark limits ofPah-sap-pah. They were plainly in awe of its frowning cliffs andrustling pines. They rode close together, whispering uneasily. EvenRain-in-the-Face failed to reassure them. Why should he? He was alittle afraid himself.

  Lafond's knowledge of the topography of the place was excellent. Hehad visited it several times. He had watched the doctor, step by step,throughout a long day of geological searching. He knew Jim Buckley'sdwelling, where he worked, what hours he kept, and just how late he satup at night. Innumerable times he had viewed the doctor, Prue, and thescout through the buck-horn sights of his long rifle; yet he had neverbeen even tempted to pull the trigger. Why? Because he was a Latin,and so theatrical effects were dear to him; because he was an Indian,and so revenge with him seemed to lie not so much in the mereinfliction of injury as in the victim's realization that he was beingcome up with. Lafond not only wanted the doctor and his companions tobe killed, but he wanted them to know why they were killed, and bywhom. It was finer to be able thus to do the thing with all the stagesettings. The dramatic instinct was part of the barbaric quality ofhis nature, like a love for red.

  So Lafond had let slip innumerable opportunities of picking off hisvictims single-handed, merely to gain the local knowledge necessary toa final _coup de theatre_. Consequently, he knew where the cabin wassituated, and quickly scouted the state of affairs. The coast wasclear. He gave the required signal; the savages silently approached onfoot, and they entered the little house together.

  Now at this time of year, in the Black Hills, there occurs a dailymeteorological phenomenon of a rather peculiar character. The hot airfrom the prairies sweeps over from the Missouri River, crossing anumber of lesser streams in its passage, until it strikes the slope ofthe hills. There it is deflected upward, gradually becoming colder asthe elevation rises, until, at the barrier of Harney, it gathers inrain clouds. These are at first mere wisps of down, streaming inragged ribbons from the peak; but with incredible rapidity they gain indensity and extent, until they spread over a considerable area of thesurrounding country. Then they empty themselves in a terrific delugeof water and hail, accompanied by thunderclaps so reverberant that theyseem to arise from the rending of the hills themselves. After thisshort crisis, the dismembered clouds float out over the prairie and aredissipated in the hot air, even before they reach the first whiteturrets of the Bad Lands.

  So rapidly does the storm gather and break, that there is but a shorthalf hour between the morning and the afternoon clearness of the skies.To those who have never experienced this phenomenon, it is startling inthe extreme; to those who have, it is a matter of seeking temporaryshelter until the disturbance blows over. In any case, the firstindications are but scant warning.

  By the time the little band of Indians had reached the doctor's cabin,the first wisps of cloud were clinging to Harney. While they were inthe house, the blackness gathered and loomed and darkened until the sunwas obscured and the western hills lost themselves in rain.

  The doctor was in the hills. Prue was making the bed in the littlebedroom, and little Miss Prue was asleep on a rug in one corner of thelarger apartment. The savages stole in with noiseless, moccasined feetbehind the stooping woman. Lafond, forgetting in his excitementeverything but the lust of killing, stabbed her deeply twice in thebroad of the back. She fell forward on the bed without a murmur, andthe murderer, seizing the knob of her hair, circled her brow with hisknife's edge, and ripped loose the scalp. Then they all glided backinto the other room.

  Three of the savages took from the wood box near the crude fireplacesome of the dried kindling with which Jim Buckley had supplied thefamily, and began to build a little wigwam-shaped pyramid against theside of the wall. Others moved about furtively, prying here and therefor possible plunder. They preserved absolute silence, for thesuperstitious terror of the place was working on them, and they hadbegun to experience that panic-like tremor which seems to create aninvisible clutch ready to seize from behind.

  Even the encouraging presence of Rain-in-the-Face was not potent enoughto prevent this. Out on the plains the personality of the man hadloomed large, but here the legend was greater than he. The warriorsfelt the imminence of the frowning, brooding manitou of Harney; theyalmost heard the moaned syllables of the Soulless Ones' complaint.Their movements were those of timid mice, advancing a little,hesitating much, ready to flee in panic.

  Not so Lafond. He strode roughly over to the corner where the childlay. In his mind, with new vividness, burned that old picture of hishumiliation. He began to realize, now that the patient repression ofhis hate was over, how potent it had been. Alfred and Billy Knapp wereout of his reach for the present, but here were the others ready to hishand. He seized little Prue by the hair of her head.

  The child, thus suddenly awakened, screamed violently, shriek uponshriek, as her terror became more fully conscious of the savage and hisbloody knife. About the room the warriors paused nervously.Accustomed enough to screams of this sort, they were now dominated bysuperstition and were thrown off their wonted balance.

  And then a fearful thing occurred. Before their eyes, in the opendoor, groped and staggered the woman Lafond had stabbed but a momentbefore. From the red raw surface of her scalp blood streamed--streamedover the remaining fringe of her hair, matting it down; streamed downinto her eyes, blinding them; over her drawn countenance; over thedabbled, sticky, clinging fabric of her garment, reddened still more bythe pulsing flood from the two great wounds in her body. Her breastheaved painfully, the breath coming and going with a strange bubblinggurgle. Her face was turned upward almost to the ceiling above in theagony of her endeavor. Her little hands, become waxen, clutched andunclutched the side of the door. The child screamed yet again,mercifully hidden from this awful sight by the intervention of Lafond'sbody. The woman made a supreme effort to advance, plunged forward, androlled over and over on the cabin floor.

  At the same instant, with a shriek of wind and a roar of rain, thevoice of the thunder spoke.

  The savages, who had watched with strained eyes this resurrection fromthe dead, yelled in an ecstasy of superstitious terror and rushed forthe door.

  Lafond, utterly unmoved, called to them in Indian and swore at them inFrench, but they were gone. He hesitated for a moment in evidentindecision as to what should be done next. Then he rapidly bundled thelittle girl in a blanket and threw her across his shoulder. As hehurried to the door, he paused for a moment over the motionless heap ofblood and rags on the floor, coolly thrusting his knife again and againinto the unresisting flesh.

  He caught the fugitives only below the canyon of Iron Creek. They hadmade no pause until well out of the hills, and were still shaking withsuperstitious dread. Even Rain-in-the-Face, bold and self-confident ashe was, had yielded to the panic; nor could the persuasions, threats orridicule of the half-breed induce them to return.

  For a time Lafond was of two minds as to his own course in the matter.Should he leave things as they were for the present or should he returnalone to com
plete the work? Finally he decided on the former. TheGallic love of the spectacular again intervened; besides, he waspossessed of a certain large feeling that the world was not wide enoughto save his victims from him when he should judge the time fit. Hefound much joy in gloating over what he imagined the two men would say,do, and think when they returned to the cabin. And he was a good dealof a savage. He looked forward with fierce delight to the great battlewhich he foresaw would soon take place between Sitting Bull and hiswhite enemies. So he rode on with the little band of warriors toovertake Lone Wolf.

  The savages plainly could not understand his encumbering himself withthe child. The custom had always been to seize such a victim by theankles, whirl it once about the head to get a good swing, and then todash its skull violently against a bowlder. They saw no reason why therule should be departed from in this case. Neither did Lafond; but thequeer, zigzag intuition of the half-breed had caused him to feel dimlythat he should preserve the child, and as he was in the habit ofgratifying his whims, he proceeded to carry out his intention in thiscase. Once his decision was expressed in emphatic form, his companionsacquiesced. The child was Michail's captive; with his own captive hecould work his will. That is the Indian code.

  So little Miss Prue was carried for seven days on the back of a horse.She did not cry much, and this saved her from violence. Her two yearsof outdoor life had made her constitution robust, and this helped herin inevitable privation. At the end of the week, the band caught upwith Lone Wolf and his camp, and Miss Prue was given over into the careof Lafond's two young squaws. With them she underwent the customarytwo days' jealousy, and then entered fully into the heritage ofkindliness which every Indian woman squeezes, drop by drop, from herarid life and lavishes on the creatures who are gentle with her.

  She had, to be sure, to learn the Indian virtues of silence andobedience. She had to do the little tasks that are set to girl babieseverywhere among the savage tribes. And, above all, she had to learnto endure. But, in recompense, the two Indian women adored her. Theydecked her out in beaded work and white buckskin; they put brightfeathers in her hair and bright beads about her little neck; they savedchoice bits for her from the family kettle; and when night came theylay on either side of her and softly stroked her hair as she slept.Over her head, among others, hung her mother's scalp.