by Max Brand
“Look,” said the warrior. “What is the greatest thing you wish to have?”
Torridon thought only a moment. “A good woman,” he said.
It was the time when the Cheyenne was halfway toward his natural strength. He could raise himself on his elbows in order to look his companion straight in the face.
When he made sure that Torridon was not jesting, he lay down again with a murmur that was half a grunt.
“Women,” he said at last, “can be bought for horses, or for beads. Women are very good,” he added hastily, for he always showed the greatest tact in saving the feelings of the white man, “because they cook and keep the lodge clean and fresh, they flesh hides and cure them, they make clothes, and, above all, they may bear man children. But, nevertheless, there are other things that you white men want. What are they?”
“We want money, I suppose,” said Torridon, who found it rather difficult to look at life in such a naked fashion. When he looked inward, he hardly knew what would evolve from the mist.
“Money, money,” said the Cheyenne almost harshly. “Well, you want women for wives, and you want money. What else?”
“To do something important.”
“Like what?” said the warrior.
“Like . . . well, building a great house, say. Or making beautiful pictures.”
Standing Bull was hardly able to suppress his scorn. “A great lodge,” he said, “is very well. It is good for little children and for women, and for old men, of course. But for young braves there is no need of a better lodge than this.”
Torridon thought at first that the other meant the wretched shelter in which he then lay. The leaves of the branches had withered now, and with the passage of every wind there was a sad hushing from the crumbling house of leaves. But then Torridon understood that the gesture of the Cheyenne indicated things beyond—the wide blue dome of the sky—it was the evening of the day—and the dim mountains and pillars of cloud beneath it.
He had no answer to this remark. It was hardly possible that he could explain the beauty of architecture to the red man.
“As for paintings,” went on the Indian, “it is true that they are good, too, on a lodge. A wise painter lets the spirits know that they are reverenced. Also, the colors are pleasant to the eye. But though paintings are sacred and pleasant, I never have seen a painted buffalo that looked as much like a real buffalo as this withered branch looks like a whole strong tree planted in the ground.”
“There are other kinds of painting,” suggested Torridon.
The Cheyenne overrode this suggestion with a sweep of his arm in which the muscles were beginning to grow again. “I ask you what you want and you speak of women, money, lodges, paint. Now let me tell you what the Indian wants. He does not want to have many women. Just enough to do the work in his lodge. He does not care for money or for more than a few painted robes to hang on his lodge. But he cares for something else. What he wants to have is many souls.” He paused, triumphantly staring at the white man. “I rush in toward my enemy, I avoid his bullet. I take the cut of his knife in order to touch him with my coup stick. Because, when I do that, some of his soul runs up the stick and passes all over me, and nobody can wash away that new soul that I have stolen. It is mine. I, Standing Bull, have counted eight coups. Who will say, then, that my soul has not been made greater and stronger?”
“What makes you so sure of that?” asked Torridon. “Though I know that you are a brave man, Standing Bull, still I think that the three braves you have killed and scalped are a greater proof of your courage than all your coups.”
The Cheyenne smiled and closed his eyes a moment, a sign that he was thinking hard. At last he shook his head. “Do you know that our word for white man has two meanings?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Torridon. “I know that you use the same word for spider and for white man.”
“This is the reason,” said the Cheyenne. “The spider is more cunning than all other things. It can walk on the air. It can hang in the wind. So does the white man. He, too, can do strange things. He even has thunder canoes, I have heard, though that is hard to believe. But you see that there are some things that the white man cannot understand, and that he cannot do. Well, counting of coups is one of them.
“But you, White Thunder, stay with me a long time and listen to me. When I go back to my people, I am going to make a scalp shirt, and then I shall be a chief. The young men will follow me on the warpath. You shall follow me, also. Now you are a wise white man. I shall make you a wise Indian. And when you are that, then who will be so wise and so great in the world as White Thunder?”
He paused and made a little gesture, palm up. It was as though he had offered to Torridon his own soul in the palm of his hand.
V
There was only one thing that seriously overclouded their relations, and that was when Torridon told the Cheyenne that he could not remain with him very long, but, as soon as the warrior’s strength had come back, Torridon must make the best of his way across the plains to find Fort Kendry.
When he first asked after Fort Kendry, the Cheyenne had let him understand that he himself knew the way to it perfectly and could direct him so clearly that a child traveling by night could have found the place. But when he understood his companion’s fixed determination of going there, Standing Bull grew sullen and even angry.
“Why should you go to the fort?” he asked. “What is there for you except what they have taken from the poor Indians? But when you go there, you will have to pay for the things that are there.” He added bitterly: “White men do not give away for nothing. They want money and many robes.” He added, by way of coating this bitter comment with sugar: “No one is so clever as a white man. You will not gain when you trade with them, White Thunder.”
“I don’t want guns or robes,” said Torridon patiently. “I only want to find a girl there.”
“Ha!” cried the Cheyenne. “A woman!”
“She is promised to me as my wife,” said Torridon.
“A woman. A woman,” repeated the Indian, and then closed his eyes as though to check a torrent of scorn that was ready to burst forth from his lips. “Tell me, my brother,” he said at last, “is this woman young? Or is she an old squaw with many robes and horses?”
“She is young,” said Torridon. He smiled a little, and then added: “She has no robes or horses. None at all, I suppose.”
“She is strong, then?” said the warrior. “She knows how to flesh skins and how to make soft moccasins and how to bead and do quill work?”
“I don’t think she understands any of those things,” said the white man. “Certainly she isn’t big or strong. She’s very small.”
Again the Cheyenne was forced to close his eyes. “Her father promised her to you? Then he was lucky to find a brave who would take such a . . . woman.” Obviously he had left out the word “worthless” in his pause. He added: “Is she plain, or pretty?”
“She?” said Torridon. Then his breast heaved and his heart swelled. He was talking to a wild Indian, but he had been silent for a long time. “She is the most beautiful creature that ever was made.”
“So?” said the warrior. “Then long before this, some other brave has come and taken her. If you offered five horses for her, he has offered ten. She is gone to his teepee. Think no more about her. A woman cannot make the heart of a great brave sore for many days. Very soon he takes another squaw. If you want wives, you shall have them. When you come home with me to my people, I shall find you the daughters of great chiefs. I shall pay the horses to buy them for you. I shall fill your teepee with everything that you need. Then you will be happy?”
He smiled expectantly, and Torridon was forced to answer slowly: “There is no other who can take her place.” He added: “Any other woman would be horrible to me.”
“Look at me while I speak the truth with a straight tongue,” said the Cheyenne. “One woman has strong hands and fleshes many robes. Another knows how to do bead
work swiftly and well. Yes, there is a difference between women. But take two wives in the place of this single one.”
Torridon hunted through his mind. He saw that it was useless to delve into the mysteries of love with this man. “You have many horses?” he asked at last.
“Many . . . many . . .” said the warrior, smiling with pride.
“Are they all the same?”
“No. There is a bay stallion that is worth all the rest.”
“Look at me,” echoed Torridon. “I speak with a straight tongue, too. Your stallion, I think, is worth all the rest. Perhaps, however, he is not worth as much as that gray mare?” He pointed to Comanche, grazing nearby. And as though she knew that she was under discussion, she lifted her lovely head and looked toward them with confidence and affection.
The Cheyenne regarded her with a burning glance. “It is true, it is true,” he muttered, as one who had had that thought often in his mind before.
Torridon whistled. Black Ashur came bounding and stood before them. “But,” said Torridon, “though this mare is very fast, Ashur leaves her standing behind him. Though she is very strong, he will run twice as far as she can run. Though she has a great heart, he will die for me.”
“Is it true?” asked the Cheyenne, the same greedy fire in his eyes. “Yes, it is true,” he answered himself with conviction, “because he has the eye of a chief. Like a chief in council he holds his head. And he runs on the wind. My brother is a great chief among the white men, or he would not have two such horses.”
“Now,” went on Torridon, “if there is such a difference between horses, can there not be such a difference between women?”
“Certainly not,” replied Standing Bull with warmth. “Does a woman carry a brave to battle? Is his life depending on her? Does she give him the speed to run away from danger? Does she give him the speed to overtake his enemy and strike him down? No, no, White Thunder, you are very wise. All white men are wise. But this is a thing about which you will know when you grow older.”
Torridon gave up the debate with a shrug of his shoulders, for he saw that he was facing a wall of rock.
They talked of many other things in the days that followed.
Finally he began to support Standing Bull from the shelter and out under the open sky, and lead him to a blanket where he could sit for hours, drinking up the strength-giving sun and breathing deeply of the pure air.
He was a huge man, standing. He was two or three inches over six feet, with great, spreading shoulders, and arms of an almost unnatural length, set off with huge hands that Torridon could hardly look upon without a shudder of fear. In the old days he had known only two men who impressed him so much. One was Roger Lincoln. But that hero was like Achilles, formidable rather in skill and speed, and graceful surety of all his ways. He was strong, also, but not a giant of power. A giant of power was Jack Brett. He had shoulders as massive as those of the Cheyenne. Perhaps hard labor and the carrying of packs through the woods had given him even a greater force than that of the Indian warrior, but Standing Bull had something of the speed and grace of Roger Lincoln united with the massive might of hand of Jack Brett.
Rarely could an uglier face than the Indian’s have been found, with its great, predatory nose, its wide, thin, cruel lips, the eyes, buried, small, terribly bright and restless, and the chin curving well out. He looked like a very god of battle, and as such Torridon looked upon him.
Lying prone in the shelter of the house of leaves, he could care for and pity Standing Bull, but once the giant was erect and walking, in spite of himself Torridon was daily more and more afraid. He remembered, with increasing frequency and force, the warnings that he had received from Roger Lincoln—an Indian never must be trusted to the hilt. Give him hope, watch him, use him when you can, but recall that always he is as treacherous as a snake.
Torridon, hearing those warnings in the old days, had come to feel that red men were men in form only. And these warnings had been reinforced by stories of midnight massacres, rum-inspired outpourings of murder and cruelty and frightfulness. And all these tales rolled up in his mind and he believed them all when he looked upon the terrible form and face of the Cheyenne.
The very voice of the warrior was like a roll of drums, a heavy bass that reverberated. And when Standing Bull stood outside the tent and shouted with joy because of the goodness of the sun as it burned upon his thin face, Torridon shook as though thunder had pealed in his ear.
At last a day came when the warrior was seen walking beside Ashur, while the latter regarded him cautiously from a corner of his eye.
“Tell me, brother, which horse shall I ride when we go back to my people?”
“Which will you have, Standing Bull?”
“The gray horse is a strong and a wonderful horse. She runs as fast as leaping lightning, but she is not like the black stallion. Only to sit on his back across the plains to the teepees of my people . . .”
Torridon smiled. “The black horse is like black thunder. He is full of strength and wickedness, Standing Bull.”
“Good,” said the warrior. “Saddle him and you will see that I fit the saddle.”
It was his way of saying that no horse could throw him. Torridon half believed that he was right, and he was worried. Once the brave felt the magic of Ashur beneath him, would he be persuaded, except by a greater force than Torridon could show, to part from the stallion?
However, now he was committed, and he saddled Ashur with care, and lengthened the stirrups to fit the great legs of the chief. He stood at the head of the horse and watched the Cheyenne leap into his seat.
“Now,” said Standing Bull.
Ashur crouched like a cat.
“Be wary,” warned Torridon, and stepped back.
Wary was the other.
Nobly, nobly, in another day, Roger Lincoln had sat on the back of that same Ashur, until flung senseless to the ground. The Cheyenne rode in another manner. He was like a panther clutching the back of a wounded bull. And it seemed to Torridon that Ashur had found a master of sheer force at last.
Yet there was an undiscovered spirit in the stallion. He seemed to expand in size, in force, as the seconds flew. He grew a flashing black monster, more in the air than on the ground. And at last, out of a whirl of bucking, out of a dizzy spinning, the Cheyenne emerged headfirst through the cloud of dust, rolled over and over, and then lurched drunkenly to his feet. Blood was running from ears, nose, mouth. But he laughed.
“It is true,” he said. “Heammawihio has made such a horse for only one man. Take him, my brother. I am smaller, now. I shall sit on the gray mare.”
And he laughed again, in the most perfect good nature.
VI
This was the reason that, when they started back over the plains for the Cheyenne village, the Indian was on the gray mare, Comanche. He was hugely delighted with her, and, taking her for a racing course in the most headlong style, he came plunging back to Torridon and assured him that there was nothing among the horses of the Cheyennes that could keep pace with her. He even invited Torridon to race the stallion against the gray, but Torridon put off the suggestion.
He was very willing to believe that Standing Bull felt great obligations to him as a deliverer in time of need, but he could not help remembering the many tales of Roger Lincoln, and sometimes the warrior looked at Ashur with such glittering eyes that Torridon almost felt a knife planted in the small of his back. So he refused to race against the mare, and, when Standing Bull let her stretch away faster and faster—when they were cantering side-by-side—he allowed the mare to go off into the lead and refused to let Ashur measure strides with her.
Eventually Standing Bull gave up his curiosity. Instead, he returned to the tale of the thing that had sent him out to lie on the island by the side of the river. Several times before he had begun the narration, but always had broken off, letting himself be diverted from the point of his talk like a man who is unwilling to tell of things that are too unpleasant.<
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What had happened, as Torridon eventually found out, was that Standing Bull, in the midst of his rising glory as a fighter, had returned with a war party and found a party of Sioux blocking their way. In the skirmish that followed, all was going well until Standing Bull, giving way to an ecstasy of battle glory, charged in among the Dakotas and tried to count coup on one of the chief braves among the Sioux.
He almost had succeeded, and he grew tense with grief and trouble when he recalled that he had been so close to endless glory. But the Sioux had swayed from the charge and managed to reach the head of Standing Bull with a stroke with the butt end of his rifle. It floored Standing Bull.
When he came to, he found the Dakotas had been forced to retreat before they had a chance to take his scalp or settle him with a knife thrust. But by the time the singing was gone out of his head, he discovered that he had lost that which was more precious to him than the very hair on his head—his medicine bag. He and all the party had searched the ground where the battle was fought. They had scanned every crevice. But the bag was gone and poor Standing Bull was in a frightful state of mind.
“But what is a medicine bag?” asked Torridon.
“The soul of a brave,” said the warrior, and would not explain any further.
However, Torridon in the past had heard enough references to the medicine bag to make him understand that the Indians actually felt the immaterial soul of a warrior was connected with his medicine bag.
With his soul gone from him, Standing Bull found that all his former achievements were looked upon as lost with the medicine bag. He would not be accepted as a member of a war party. His voice would not be heard in the council. And he determined that something desperate must be undertaken in order to change the condition of his life.
The medicine men and the wise sages of the tribe could not advise him. He determined, therefore, to leave the tribe and go forth to make new medicine with the help of the spirits. As a young man goes to consult the future, so Standing Bull went out to lie in danger until a sign was given to him. He had selected the little island where the river forked. It was considered an enchanted spot. Here he lay for four days, never turning from his right side. At last came the thunder of the water; the white man and the two horses rushed up to him, and Standing Bull’s soul was filled with joy, for he felt that this was indeed a direct sign from heaven.