by Max Brand
“He’s turned down the chief, however,” said Meany. “He’s learned the language, and he’s learned the tune that the words go to, as well. Helen enjoyed that show.”
For Helen Meany was laughing until she swayed in the saddle, and young Tarlton was laughing in turn as the frontiersmen came up to him.
“Now,” said Duncan to the youth, “here’s your chance to show what that high-priced mare is worth. Her legs are twice as long as the legs of those ponies. Why not try her in a race against ’em?”
“It’s not a race. It’s a dodging contest,” said Tarlton. “She’d barely get her legs stretched before she came to a turn”
“It’s the sort of race that they have in this country,” said Duncan. “And what’s the good of a mare like that? She can’t travel across country, because she’s not strong enough to carry a man and a pack, and she can’t win a race for you because her legs are too long for the turns. If I had a critter like that, Tarlton, I’ll tell you what I’d do . . . I’d fat her up and give the boys a feast.”
Tarlton ran his thumb down the mare’s sleek side. “She’d probably make good eating, at that,” he admitted. “Wouldn’t you, Camille?”
“Which?” snorted Meany.
“She’s a French lady,” explained Tarlton gravely.
“She runs to legs,” commented Duncan scornfully. “She’s apt to break up like pipe stems, if you get her among the rocks.”
“You never can tell a sword until you’ve tried it,” said Tarlton.
“A rifle ball will make the best sword in the world as foolish as a paper knife,” retorted Meany.
“One can’t have everything,” Tarlton said. “Some things are useful. Some things are beautiful. And there you are.”
In a dexterous fashion, his eye included Helen Meany in this remark, so that the girl flushed.
“Then make a picture of her and stick it in your pocket,” said Duncan.
“Who can paint her eye and her mind?” Tarlton asked with a gesture.
“Bah!” Meany snorted.
But his daughter looked on the youth with a whimsical smile of understanding.
However, at that moment the two ponies were lined up for the race. There seemed such a vast difference between the two champions that the white men had bet to a man on the Blackfoot champion. This was a slender-limbed pony with the build and the head of a deer, and a lithe youth was on its back, a mere featherweight of a boy. On the other hand, the representative of the Crows was a thick-legged creature still wearing its shaggy winter coat. It had the neck of a ewe and the eye of a goat, red-stained and wicked. On its back was a huge brave of middle age, his legs dangling far toward the ground, and in his hand a massive club with a knotted head. However, the course was short, and the weight of the riders would not make a very great difference.
Frantic betting was the rule for the last moment before the start, and then a steady pressure from the rear as those behind strove to get in better position to view the race. The signal fell, and away darted the champions.
It was exactly as one would have guessed. Running like a deer, the Blackfoot pony stretched a length or more into the lead and doubled this advantage by a lightning turn at the first corner. And at the second heap of turf there was still more daylight between it and the Crow pony.
But now the warrior roused himself. He began to swing his club, while the horse, shaking its head at every blow, strained forward, and the Crows filled the air with a roar of excitement. With all this effort, however, the Crow horse could not lessen the distance between it and the leader until they came to the third and last turn of the short race. Then it seemed as though the Blackfoot faltered and hung in its stride, for they flashed around the turf pile exactly even and rushed for home.
High the brave swung the club, whacking the sides of the Crow pony. Its shaggy legs flew; its stride increased, and the Blackfoot pony, suffering under the lash, ridden beautifully by the youngster with a desperate, straining face, fell back inch by inch. His nose was at the shoulder of the Crow at the finish, and a long yell went up from the multitude, like the shout of ten thousand Indians charging for battle.
Then the noise died down.
The winners were too proud to show any exultation as they accepted the payment of the debts that had been made against them. The white men and the Blackfeet were too proud to show any anger. For a moment this quiet lasted, very strangely, and then the muttering of the losing Blackfeet began, one to another. The higher voices of the exulting Crows could be heard.
The whole crowd was in confused movement again, but this time it was milling around like cattle undetermined where to go. Their blood was up, and they wanted more of the same excitement—the losers revenge, the winners more taste of victory.
This feeling of an unspoken challenge did not last long, because a ripple ran through the crowd. Among the Cheyennes there was a famous red stallion—swift as the wind, it was said, undefeated in races. It was the property of a great chief. He was bringing it in person to challenge the Crow.
And yonder he came, the stallion burning like copper beneath the sun, and the chief with a flutter of feathers in his hair. Toward him went the Crow, looking more like a caricature than ever on his goat-like horse.
V
Even the patriotism of the Cheyennes, the fame of their chief, and the beauty of his red bay stallion, however, could not induce them to bet as freely as the Blackfeet had done against the Crow’s ragged pony. That ugly beast had proved its worth; many a Blackfoot now was “folding his arms over an empty stomach,” as Spotted Calf, the Piegan chief, feelingly declared. And the Cheyennes took warning.
However, they gave their leader some support. Those whose horses had been beaten by the little stallion still felt that he must possess a measure of invincibility, and they brought out their beaver skins and their robes to the wagering. So the two were brought to the start and off they went. As before, the shaggy little brute of the Crows hung close during the first round, but with the second he turned into a distinct lead, for he dodged around the turf piles like a rabbit. He had the advantage of a very weatherly ship, which can easily cut close to the wind.
Headed for home on the last stretch, he had a three-length advantage. The Cheyennes were silent, and the Crows were sending up a jubilant yell when the rider of the bay stallion made up his mind to a desperate adventure.
Straight across the course ran a shallow draw in which water ran for a few days in the heaviest season of rainfall. Toward the river and farther back from it, its sides presented no obstacle whatever, so that on the outward stretch the horses dipped into the slight depression and swept easily out of it again. But in the back stretch the case was different. Here the draw had cut through a bank so that on the farther side—as the horses approached it—the bank rose almost sheer, six feet in height.
In order to avoid this, the racers had to swing out to a considerable distance, and now the Cheyenne determined to try to cut across the chord of the arc by driving straight across the draw. He sent the red bay down into the depression. A wild yell of astonishment from the Cheyennes and fear from the Crows followed this maneuver. For an instant, the head of the stallion was seen to appear above the nearer bank, and then he toppled back.
The Crow pony went on to a hollow victory, and the Cheyenne chief rode out of the draw, covered with dust, and rode furiously back among his people.
It was at this moment, as the first yell of the Crows died down and the flourish of debt payments was completed, that Duncan said to Tarlton: “Now, my boy, if your mare is worth her salt, take her out and bring down the pride of the Crows a little.”
Tarlton, with a shrug of his shoulders, answered: “What’s the honor, after all, in beating a tired little pony?”
Duncan went off in disgust, but there was another who passed by almost unnoticed in the excitement of the crowd, and that was Little Bull—that noted Cheyenne chief who held up for terms four times as high as those which would have satisfie
d the Blackfeet in the trading. The reason for his demands was that he knew something of the whites and their ways; he even possessed a very sound knowledge of English speech, and for one instant he lingered in his stride to hear.
He went off with a light in his eye, for there was one thing that he did not understand, and that was the white man’s banter, which falls somewhere between truth and an outright lie.
In the meantime, events were happening that were to give a new point to that random remark of young Tarlton, for Duncan and Meany, riding side-by-side, came through the press to where the triumphant Crow was surrounded by the envy and the admiration of his people. The warrior saw the trader and greeted him with a broad grin. Were there no horses among those of the white men which would give his pony a race?
“Yonder,” said Meany, “you’ll find a young man with a horse as fast as the Thunderbird that flies down the sky on three flaps of his wings. He will ride against your pony if you challenge him hard enough. Besides, he has enough wealth with him to fill two teepees to the crossing of the poles.”
The Crow heard, and his eyes flashed a greedy fire. So he was presently twisting his way through the crowd until he reached Tarlton, who had been obligingly described by Meany in leaving. He found that young man engaged in telling Helen Meany why he had come to the West, and that conversation was of such interest that they sat their horses close together, stirrup to stirrup, and eye to eye. His account of how his original stake furnished by his father on leaving the East had shrunk in coming up the river made her gasp and made her laugh. And Tarlton laughed with her and suddenly made the great, stern, mysterious prairies, where Indian dangers and Indian craft were born, seem to the girl a place of ridiculous pleasure and ridiculous beauty. One could not help laughing at the delightful face of this kind world. Young David Tarlton made the burden of all its worries a mere featherweight.
In the midst of this chatter, a passage opened to them through the crowd, and the Crow appeared and raised his hand in greeting to the boy. At his first words, Helen Meany cried out: “He offers to race you, because he hears you have a famous horse!”
Tarlton grinned at her. “Have you the tongue of a Blackfoot?” he said in that language.
“I have two tongues,” replied the Crow, “one of them is the tongue of a Blackfoot, and both tongues speak the thing that is true. I have heard that your horse is as fast as the Thunderbird, which flies across the sky with three strokes of his wings. I have only an ugly pony, but today he has won, his heart is a big heart, and he would run even after a bird.”
“Brother,” said Tarlton, “it is true that this mare is a fast runner, but she steps with a long step. The eagle cannot dodge like the hawk. What would she do with her long legs in rounding the marks?”
“But in the straight run, she will bound like an eagle on the wind.”
“Well,” said Tarlton, “when she has learned the feel of this grass under her feet, she may try her luck. But not today.”
The Crow sneered. He was a brave with scalps in his teepee, and all of them had not the black hair of Indians. He said: “If my brother is afraid, we will run our horses for pleasure to feel the wind in our faces. We will not make a bet. My brother is young. Perhaps he has not many horses to risk?”
Tarlton flushed and started in his saddle. And the words came ringing off his tongue. “The horse I ride, and the saddle I ride on . . . the pistols in these pouches, and the bullets that go with them, against your horse and your rifle and your saddle, friend. And if you will double the distance, I’ll double the stake.”
The Crow looked. The mare was beautiful, to be sure, yet his own horse was a proved champion, and his rifle shot straight, but on the handles of the pistols he saw the bright golden chasing, and his heart leaped. He never had seen such a thing before. Pistols, he knew, were weapons of war, but never had he beheld weapons so beautiful.
The bargain was made; their hands had closed on it before the girl could interfere, and the Crow was off toward the start with a malicious grin of triumph on his face.
It was not the first well-bred horse that had been matched against Indian ponies in these dodging races around a double or a triple goal, and the Crow knew very well that the agile footwork of the Indian pony was almost sure to more than offset the longer stroke of the thoroughbred.
“There!” cried Helen Meany. “You’ve lost it all before the race begins!”
“I have,” admitted Tarlton. “But . . . when I first saw these plains, I told myself that I would like to walk on ’em. And as for pistols . . . why, rifles are the trick out here . . . and who else has a saddle like this one?”
“And the mare?” she asked.
His mouth twitched. “Poor girl,” he said, but instantly made himself smile again, then started for the mark.
The ripple of the news had spread before him like fire through dead grass. Now it roared far away like waves over shallows—among the Blackfeet, who hoped to see the Crow humbled at last; among the whites of the fort, who heard the whisper that the young greenhorn was a fool sure to lose; among the more distant Cheyennes, where a tall chief was moving from group to group and saying two words to each. He was giving them, as he felt, a secret worthy of a price. He was telling each distinguished warrior who he wished to make his friend that, if he would win an easy bet, this was his golden opportunity, by laying money on the white man’s horse.
And suddenly the whole focus of attention of all that crowd—men and women, and children with eyes bright as foxes—was gathered once more upon two horses and their riders.
With the Cheyennes determined to bet deep and long, there was plenty of trouble already assured, when Meany, with the best will in the world, made the complications still more serious.
Spotted Calf himself, that noble young chief, found the trader in the crowd and asked him seriously: “You have a knowledge of the horses of your men. Tell me, friend, if the horse of the young man is very fast?”
And Meany answered with a laugh: “You are my friend, Spotted Calf, and now I shall be a friend to you. That young man has just come out here among us, and he is a young fool. He opens his mouth many times, but only a few words come out, and those are for women and children to play with, and not for men to hear. Will a man like that ride a very swift horse?”
Spotted Calf asked no more.
He went away and found his three squaws, and he said to them: “Bring some of my horses. Put robes and beaver pelts on them. Today, I have won a race before the horses left the start. Bring down many horses. If you see my friends, my best friends and companions on the warpath, tell them that the Crow’s horse is sure to win.”
The squaws left, and the word spread, and the Crows went to their teepees and came staggering down under the weight of their goods.
What man would not bet his very boots on a sure thing?
VI
Young Tarlton jogged his horse around the course. He did not like it; he knew that he was beaten, but he had in his mind to make as good a race as he could. And as he looked down to the gleaming, slender neck of the mare, he bade her good-bye in his thoughts.
He had in his heart a single hope, that perhaps she would be able to climb the draw, where the Cheyenne had failed, but when he looked down from the edge above, he saw that the bottom was covered with loose pebbles, and the distance was not sufficient to give a horse a proper run. She could not jump the bank from such a footing, and if she could not jump it, she certainly could not climb it where the cat-footed Cheyenne stallion had failed.
So he came gloomily back toward the start, and because he was gloomy, he whistled as clearly as any blackbird that ever flew up from a sunny field of flowers.
Helen Meany, drifting toward him through the press, heard that whistle and understood, and she smiled with tears standing in her eyes.
In the meantime, the excitement among the Indians grew. The Crows by this time were willing to bet their medicine bags on their champion. From the Blackfeet, they could get no
wagers, but here came the Cheyennes, keen for plunder.
Of all the warriors who roamed the plains, there were no warriors quite so determined as the Cheyennes. They rode as hard as the Comanches; they charged home with a firmness all their own, and they carried the same thorough-going spirit into all their pursuits. Not even a Sioux was willing to bet with more determined extravagance than the Cheyennes.
They had their tip from their foremost chief. It was almost a duty to take his advice. And besides, they saw before them the sleek beauty of the French mare and the strange costume of the rider and the strange saddle in which he rode—all the more reason for having confidence in him.
They came carrying beadwork, blankets, robes painted and unpainted, knives, guns, decorated pouches, and all the wealth that an Indian prizes, even down to ornamented back rests from their teepees.
They came like a flood among the Crows and the Blackfeet, and wherever warrior met warrior, the bets were plighted solemnly. There was no doubt of honest payment, for cheating in such matters was not in the Indian code.
Duncan met Meany in the midst of this babble of bargains.
“The Cheyennes are clean crazy,” he said.
“It serves them right,” said Meany through his teeth. “With the Cheyennes half bankrupt, we can close and do business with the other two tribes. Little Bull is the one we want out of the way. The brave has advised his people to bet on Tarlton’s mare, I hear. And if that’s the case, he’ll be a chief without a following in another ten minutes. Look yonder, where the Cheyennes are still boiling up with their stuff. They’re gutting their teepees to bet.”
In fact, they might have done so, but there was hardly time. For the two riders were now ready, and the two horses were looking each other in the eye at the start.