Peyton

by Max Brand

  Then, glancing gloomily to the south, Torridon thought he saw a thickening of the horizon line. His heart bounded into his throat. There was no doubt. The dark line grew yet broader. It began to bulge upward in the center.

  “Sky People!” cried Torridon in the Cheyenne tongue, “I command you to send the rain clouds and the rain! Instantly send them!”

  At the boldness of this talk a soft groan of fear rose from the warriors and then from the masses of people beyond. Torridon shouted: “Fire! Let every gun be fired straight into the air. Standing Bull, repeat the order!”

  There was no need for Standing Bull to repeat it. Instantly it was obeyed. Pistols, rifles, and all crashed their volley into the air. Wisps of smoke blew off in ragged flights. And then Torridon pointed to the south. A lofty thunderhead already was hanging in the sky.

  “Swiftly, and more swiftly!” commanded Torridon. “Behold, there is the answer!”

  Not until he made that gesture did a single eye glance away from him, and now all turned and beheld in the south the lofty shadow darkening the sky. There was a groan of wonder, and then followed an hysterical cry of joy. The rain was coming! Men and women held up their hands to it. Lips parted. People began to laugh.

  Torridon felt a strange lifting of the heart. He waved his hand. There was instant, utter silence, save for the murmur of children, quickly hushed.

  “Not clouds only,” cried Torridon, “but let there be rain, and let there be thunder and lightning!”

  A sort of childish ecstasy had carried him away to these words. But now, across the rising forehead of the cloud, there was a glimmer and then a distinct streak of light.

  Even the heart of Torridon was overwhelmed with awe. And from the Cheyennes there arose a cry so filled with fear that it was more like a lament than a rejoicing.

  XII

  There was not so much enthusiasm in Torridon that he failed to notice that none of the braves had reloaded their weapons. Quietly he loosed the rope that bound the mare to the stallion. Follow he hoped she would, but she must not act as an impediment when he attempted to bound the black stallion across the draw.

  In the meantime, the Cheyennes were beginning to give over their silence. An increasing cry of wonder and awe and joy rose from them as the cloud swept closer. It seemed apparent that it was not merely a squall. Its lofty front was crowned with great towers of the most dazzling white, based on terraces of gray, and these, in turn, were solidly founded upon a huge thickness of heavy black, impenetrable, and yet rolled fiercely upon itself. The whole mass of vapor was in the wildest turmoil, boiling up from the bottom to the top, and sinking from the top to the bottom.

  As it drew closer, it piled higher and higher into the central sky until it seemed to be occupying those spaces under the sun that the dimmest stars fill by night. Yet also it was so vast a burden that the air did not seem capable of supporting that storm, and the feet of it brushed the ground. Long arms of black were thrust down, and dun-colored mist clouded the face of the prairie.

  The forward bulwark of the storm crossed the sun. At once semi-twilight took the place of what had been day, blazing hot and bright. At the same time, small streamers and flags broke away from the upper section of the cloud masses and darted like flung javelins across the heavens to the north—javelins of transparent and jewel-like white that the upper sun turned into separate walls of brilliance.

  Heavier arms were flung after them, darker, heavier. The whole sky to the north began to be flecked with gray and with white splashes, and then the first breath of the wind reached the watchers. It came first with a gentle sighing, and then a puff that streamed out the mane of Ashur. He, like the hero that he was, faced this towering wall of dark with pricked ears and perfect complacence. Only once did he turn his head as if to see what went on in the face of his master.

  That face Torridon maintained as well as he could in a grave, almost a threatening air of command. He felt like a futile child in the presence of the deity, but he saw that it was well for him to make these grown-up children imagine that he had indeed commanded the elements.

  All the time he kept an authoritative hand raised, and now and again he lifted his voice in a harsh chant, something in the tone of the chants that he had heard among the Cheyennes, though the words that he supplied were the sheerest gibberish. Covertly he was watching the Indians of his guard.

  They were overcome, like the rest of the multitude. Sometimes they glanced at him, as at the raiser of the winds, but the vast majority of their attention was given to the progress of the great cloud. They drew their robes close about them. They leaned forward, as though the weight of the storm already were beating upon them.

  There was only one exception, and that was big Standing Bull. Calmly reloading his rifle and a pistol that he carried in a saddle holster, he then gave his entire attention not to the wind or the clouds, but to the bringer of the rain—to poor Torridon himself. And the latter felt that he would rather have bought the indifference of that one formidable warrior than the carelessness of all the rest of the guards who were around him. He was at least glad that Standing Bull dared not leave his place at the edge of the draw.

  There was no doubt that the cloud was bringing copious rain with it. The mist above the face of the prairie now deepened. It became a thick wall, as impenetrable as any part of the storm, brushing the very surface of the ground, and presently Torridon could smell the acrid yet pleasant odor of rain, newly fallen upon the parched plains. The next moment his face was stung.

  A cry of approbation and incredulous delight burst from the watchers as the first, rattling volley of the rain whipped them. It was as though they had taken the beginning of this to be merely a great picture, staged with vast effects of light and shadow, but perhaps as unreal as a painting on a buffalo robe. Now they saw and felt the actuality. At their feet the dust puffed up as the great drops hammered against the earth. Upon their heads and faces the volley struck. And with a universal gesture of praise and joy, they threw their arms up to the blackening sky.

  The rain was indeed upon them. The overhanging coping of the cloud now was toppling down the northern sky, shutting the whole sky away, dimming the day to evening light, and now even this light grew yet fainter. Beyond the draw were some bushes. They disappeared from sight as a gray wall swept over them.

  Torridon shrank. It was like the coming of a solid wave of water. And when the weight of the rain struck him, he gasped for breath; at once, all around him was in confusion, as the half-wild horses of the guard reared and plunged, but only vaguely could he see them—figures guessed at, things out of a dream.

  The very voice of the multitude was more than half lost in the roar of the rain, like the roar of a waterfall—but the chant of exultation came in vague waves toward him, split across by the neighing of the frightened horses, as the huge bulk of the cloud itself was split across by the sudden spring of the lightning. It cracked the blackened sky across from zenith to horizon, and the thunder pealed instantly afterward. The earth shook with the sound, and the ears were made to ring.

  But by that flash of the lightning, in spite of the rain curtains that streamed from the sky, Torridon was aware of Standing Bull, who at last had left his post and was making straight for him.

  He was roused as out of a trance. It seemed to Torridon, in that excited moment, that heaven had indeed answered a prayer from his lips, and that now he was a craven and a fool if he allowed the opportunity to pass without taking advantage of it, no matter how slight it might be. So he called to Ashur, and the stallion quivered once, and then burst into a gallop. The silver mare, who had been crowding against the black horse as though for protection, veered far to the side, and then rushed after, whinnying. But Torridon held Ashur straight for the verge of the draw.

  He had marked the place before. It was not, so far as he had been able to judge, the narrowest gap from bank to bank, but the nearer bank rounded off so as to offer a sure footing, and the farther bank was low, and
rounded of edge, also—such a landing place as, if a horse slipped, would not hurl him on his back, but give him a chance to scramble up, cat-like.

  The thunder burst on them again, with lightning roving wildly through the noise, and, by that burst of light, he saw Standing Bull at the full gallop after him, guiding his horse with his knees, and his rifle raised with both hands.

  “Ashur!” shouted Torridon.

  And the good horse acknowledged the cry by hurling himself forward at full speed. They reached the edge of the draw. Excited voices shouted from either side, and it seemed to Torridon that hands were reached out to snare him, but now Ashur was away into the air, leaping without hesitation or fear, and flinging himself boldly over the gap.

  What a gulf of sullen dark it was beneath them! And already the torrents of the rain had marked the stony bottom with little pools of water, like glimmering silver. They shot high up, they hung in mid-air without moving forward, as it seemed to Torridon, and then they landed with a jar on the farther bank.

  Sick at heart, he felt the quarters of the stallion slip away beneath him. But Ashur recovered himself like a monster cat. He scrambled, found a footing, and lurched away across the prairie, while Torridon turned back with a savage exultation in his heart. Now let them follow if they dared.

  They dared not.

  On the brink behind him, he saw the great form of Standing Bull, with a rifle couched in the hollow of his shoulder. A pressure of the knee made Ashur bound to one side like a man dodging, and that instant the rifle spat fire. The bullet went wide. Not even the sing of it came close to Torridon’s ear. Still he looked back and saw the silver mare, brilliant and beautiful even in this rain-clouded light, hesitate on the verge of the chasm and then pitch forward into it.

  XIII

  It robbed him of half the pleasure of his escape. There was nothing beneath the sun that Roger Lincoln prized more than this splendid creature, and Torridon little liked the thought of some day facing him and confessing that he had come away and left Comanche behind him.

  But now he must ride hard. There was faint danger for the moment, but when the rain lifted, if it proved to be merely a passing squall, then he might well come within range of some of their accurate rifles. And with that weapon he himself was so useless that he could not well keep them at long distance.

  So he struck out a straight course to the north. He had made what inquiries he could while he was among the Cheyennes, and he had it vaguely in mind that Fort Kendry must be somewhere to the edge of the northern and eastern horizon.

  “Four days and four nights,” they had said, “on the warpath. Six days traveling on a hunt.”

  That was eloquent. He determined that he must keep steadily on by the North Star for four days and nights. Certainly Ashur could do as much in that time as the sturdiest Indian ponies that ever bestrode the prairies. Having made his point, he then would venture one day to the right, and, turning back, he would go straight for two days. If still Fort Kendry was not in sight, he trusted that he would be able to circle and cut for trail until he found some path that would lead him into the frontier post. That is to say, unless what he had gathered from half a dozen sources among the Cheyennes had not been all one parcel of complicated lying.

  He laid his course with greater and greater temporary confidence. It was true that the first blast and fury of the wind and the rain had diminished, but, although it lifted, he could not see a sign of a horseman behind him. The rain developed into an ordinary pelting storm, not heavy enough to damage the corn, but certainly enough to give it the soaking it required.

  Perhaps sheer gratitude in the breasts of the majority would prevent them from allowing a party in pursuit to start after him. But he sighed and doubted that. And then his heart swelled as he remembered that Standing Bull deliberately had fired after him. Surely in all the annals of mankind there had been no deed of more foul ingratitude. Yet, in a way, he understood. In the confused brain of Standing Bull, he appeared as a gift from heaven. The gift had no right to take wings and remove itself. Furthermore, the more valuable a gift had he proved himself—if he could cure the sick and bring the rain—the more bitterly was his loss to be regretted. No doubt, he tried to assure himself, Standing Bull had fired at Ashur, and not at Ashur’s rider.

  Now that he had made peace with his conception of the warrior, he felt a certain touch of kindness for the Cheyennes. Those upon whom we have lavished our kindness are always those upon whom we shower our most pleasant recollections. And Torridon felt that he had been drinking deep of real life from the instant when he first encountered the prostrate dreamer on the river island.

  He told himself that he had been a boy before, but now he was a man, and a real man. Turning his head, then, from this reverie, he was aware of a streak of gray moving across the plain. He turned back with a shout of wonder and joy, and then through the rain mist she came on bravely, tossing her head and whinnying—Comanche herself!

  To Torridon, it was like the coming of a welcome and long-trusted friend. For such she was. And if he never had been able to establish in her the same sort of electric understanding that existed between him and the stallion, at least she would come when she was called, follow at his heels like a dog, and do many pretty and foolish tricks, such as sitting down and begging like a dog, with a lifted foreleg. She did a frantic circle around them, slipping in the mud as she turned, and neighing again in her rejoicing.

  Then she came up beside them. Torridon could see mud on the saddle, which proved that she had rolled in the bottom of the draw. But perhaps that tumble had been the means of saving her neck. At any rate, she was unharmed, and, when the rain had sluiced the mud from her, she would be as good as new.

  He changed to her at once—Ashur had borne the brunt of the fast running during the escape—and pressed along the course. Into his mind, now, flashed a picture of what he had been in the first dreary days after the loss of Roger Lincoln. He had been crushed with despair, totally overwhelmed with loneliness. Now the two horses were to him like two friends, and almost filling the place of humans. Half the terror was departed from the prairies. And if he could not find his goal, he felt that he could endure hunger with calm, and trust to the luck of the hunt to find game. He was far from expert with the rifle, but still he was much improved. He had an excellent weapon, and he had an ample store of ammunition.

  That first day was a hungry and miserable one, but, in place of food and of warmth, he had the delicious sense of freedom. Though he scanned the horizon painfully again and again, he had no sight of any living thing, and he made up his mind that the Cheyennes, knowing how peerlessly he was mounted, had determined not to follow in chase.

  He found no tree or even a bush large enough to give shelter, when the dark day suddenly grew blacker with the evening. The best that he could do was to make a pile of the packs and then roll in a damp blanket on the lee side of the pile. A wet couch, but nevertheless his sleep was deep.

  Once or twice he roused himself, always to find that the rain was pattering in his face. With vague trouble he wondered if this exposure would bring fever on him, but afterward he slept well again, and, when he wakened, it was because of the low, anxious whinny of Ashur.

  He looked up. The great, black horse was standing beside him as though on guard, and Torridon sat up in the gray of the morning. The sky was still solid gray with rain clouds, but those clouds were riding high and the horizon was much enlarged since the low and misty weather of the day before. The stallion was pointing his head to the east, his ears quivering back and forth in obvious anxiety, and Torridon stared long at that spot. It was not until he had stood up that he discovered, in the gray, faint distance, faintly moving forms, barely distinguishable.

  It was enough to make his heart leap. Frantically he set about saddling and bridling, his fingers stumbling with nervous haste. But he would not allow himself the dangerous privilege of another glance until he was finally in the saddle on the mare. Ashur should be reserv
ed for the last emergency.

  In that saddle, however, when he looked again to the east, he saw that danger was rapidly sweeping toward him. A dozen or more Indians, not half a mile away, were galloping toward him. They did not come in one body, but in groups of two or three, widely separated, and strung out in a line from north to south, as though they were sweeping the plains with a great net to catch what fish they could.

  He turned the head of his horse due west and sent the mare into a strong gallop. Ashur followed beside her with his enormous stride. There was no need to keep a lead rope on him. By word of mouth he could be as effectually controlled as by a bridle.

  But it was only at a pace little short of her full speed that Comanche could begin to drop the wild riders behind, and that by slow degrees. The Cheyennes—he had no doubt that it was they—moved at a terrific pace, punishing their mounts remorselessly, for each warrior had three or four animals in reserve, and the horse herd was brought up in the rear by active boys, who flogged the tired ones up to the company of their fresher brothers.

  Still they could not quite manage the rate of Comanche. The fine mare straightened to her work, and the Indians fell gradually off, so that Torridon felt that he could safely swing toward the north again without any danger of being caught by the wing of the enemy in that direction.

  To the north he swerved, therefore, but, as he turned the head of Comanche in the new direction, he heard a sound like the screeching of ten devils. And to the west, not a hundred yards away, out of the very bosom of the plain, as it were, upstarted a full score of Cheyennes, with the formidable figure of Standing Bull prominent in the front rank. They charged down at him, yelling like so many fiends, at the full speed of their horses, the heads of the ponies shaken by their fierce efforts.

  Torridon turned dumb with exquisite fear. He could call on the gray mare, but the touch of his knee and the grinding of his heel into her tender flank were enough to make her swerve and bolt back.