by Max Brand
He looked back at the broad shoulders, and the arched chest, and the mighty muscles which were beginning to form along the arms. No other lad in the tribe could boast of such a torso. The confidence of Big Hard Face began to return.
“However, hear what I have to say, and then you will see that I am right. When Tarawa looks down on the band which steals along the warpath, he first marks down the brave men, who carry the signs of their bravery with them. Then he gives them power and fortune.
“But you, when you ride on the warpath — what signs do you bear? Have you the feathers of a chief in your hair? Are you marked with the scars of battle or of self-torture in which you have honored Tarawa?”
The face of Thunder Moon grew blank.
“Now,” went on his father, “this very day, on the eastern hill toward the sun, young Waiting Bear is to have his breasts opened with the knife and the thongs passed through them. You and I shall go up with him. I shall cut your breasts with the knife. I shall pass the thong through the cuts. There will be a little blood and a little pain. But afterward, when you come back to my tepee, the mark of your manhood will be upon your body for the whole tribe to know that you are worthy to be a brave, and Tarawa will be ready to welcome another warrior!”
He stood up and extended his hand, and Thunder Moon’s eyes widened, and his face turned pale.
“Come!” said the foster father. “We shall go at once!”
He stood up and extended his hand, and Thunder Moon seemed to need its assistance as he got to his feet.
Side by side, they went out from the village; but as they went, the voice of Big Hard Face was continually raised.
“Look!” he would cry. “Here walks Thunder Moon ready to climb up to the eastern hill and be tied, through his body, to the post of sacrifice. Here walks Thunder Moon, ready to be seen by the Sky People. Look well at him, oh, ye Cheyennes! This is a warrior! This is the true son of Big Hard Face.”
The cry caused a continual commotion, and children and women and men poured out to see the pair pass.
Thunder Moon, seeing the wonder in their faces, as though this were the very last thing that they could have expected from him, felt his courage expand. He smiled. He put back his head. His step grew lighter. And he told himself that he would die sooner than fail in this great test.
And, as they left the village and began the ascent, they saw Waiting Bear and his grandfather already before them on the high place. Many people stood at a distance, to watch what was to happen.
“Half of your life is spent with honor, when you do this thing,” said Big Hard Face. “All the tribe will honor you. Men, and even the children, used to smile at you before you took the rifle from Waiting Bear. But now you have a chance to do a greater thing by showing them all, that, while Waiting Bear may endure the torment with silence, you may endure it with a smile. But if Waiting Bear should fail in the trial, do you know what would happen to him?”
The boy half closed his eyes and shuddered. He knew only too well.
Two years before, one of the youths of the tribe had shrunk from the knife and begged for mercy. Instantly, he had been released from the danger. He had been sent freely back to the village. But from that moment he began to live as one who had died while he still breathes, and walks, and speaks. The men of the tribe would not sit in the same lodge with him. When he entered a tepee, even some of the women and children scorned to breathe the atmosphere which his presence polluted. And, indeed, he had ceased to be a man. He had become a woman, with a single, shambling rackbones of a horse assigned to him; and instead of the glories of the warpath, he was given the woman’s work of fleshing the buffalo robes.
Of him, Thunder Moon thought; and his heart was sick in him. The very children of the village turned their backs upon the disgraced youth. Death, certainly, was preferable to such an existence. And, for his own part, he was determined to die rather than fail.
So he climbed up the hill, pale, but with his jaw resolutely set.
And at the top he saw Waiting Bear standing boldly. A leather thong was already knotted in his flesh. Now, the old Indian who had accompanied Waiting Bear slashed the other side twice and fastened the other thong in place.
Then, leaning back his weight against the two leather strips, which were attached to the post in the center, Waiting Bear walked slowly, his grandfather aiding in pushing against him, so as to throw a strain upon the tied flesh. It seemed that it must give and that the thongs would tear through and set him free. But the skin held. The sinews were tough, and the agony would have to continue until the night.
All the blood seemed to have left the brain of Thunder Moon and he leaned heavily against his foster father.
“Do you hear me?” said Big Hard Face roughly.
“I hear you!” whispered the boy.
“What is one day of pain compared with a long life of glory? Thunder Moon, is your heart stronger?”
“Give me a little moment longer. The sun has made me dizzy!”
There was a faint groan from the warrior.
“They are watching. We cannot wait any longer!” he cautioned, and at the same time he gripped the flesh over the right breast of Thunder Moon and drew it stiffly out from his body. The knife was raised and flashed. The brightness of it burned into the very soul of Thunder Moon. Then a pang of exquisite agony pierced his body — to the very heart, it seemed to him.
His strength melted from him. His throat muscles unlocked. And a scream of terror burst from his lips!
Chapter Nine
FOR A THING so dreadful, there was only one answer, and that was terrible silence. A stifled moan from Big Hard Face, as he knelt beside the fallen body of the boy, was the only sound.
The grandfather of Waiting Bear had thrown his buffalo robe over his face, so that he might not see this shameful spectacle. And all the distant watchers were frozen in their places.
Then said Waiting Bear:
“Is not this a holy hill, which Tarawa is watching? Who has brought a dog here, to howl at the sky?”
And he laughed, savagely, and throwing his weight back more vigorously than ever, he seemed as though he would straightway tear the leather thongs through his flesh. So did he rejoice in his strength and in his scorn for pain.
But Thunder Moon crawled to his knees, and then to his feet, staggering. He reached out a hand toward Big Hard Face, but the latter was already striding on in advance, and his head, also, was veiled in his robe.
Then Thunder Moon grew aware of the brightness of the terrible sun above him. And he saw in the heart of the sky a little glistening cloud of white, already fast dissolving.
Why had he not known that the Sky People would not fail him; that they had come down to watch; that they would have given him succor if he had thought to call upon them, and would have poured him full of strength?
But he had forgotten, and now he was worse than a dead thing; he was a man-woman, the rest of his days! He could not ride a war horse. He could not take a war bow in his hands. The splendid rifle was no longer for him!
And now, worst of all, he must walk back into the village under the eyes of all these people.
He could not endure it. He turned and fled straight out across the sun-whitened prairies.
He ran until his head reeled and the ground waved beneath him. And when he looked back, the village had sunk from sight beneath the low swells of the prairie lands.
Then he sat down.
He took out his hunting knife. But the very sight of it was too much for him, and he knew, with a fresh and dreadful burst of shame, that he would not have the courage to strike himself to the heart.
So he flung himself downward and began to weep.
Perhaps in all the history of the Cheyenne tribe, no boy of thirteen had wept in such a fashion. He had been raised a Cheyenne, but what a hopeless distance lay between him and the fulfillment of the Indian ideal!
Afterward, with the heat of the sun scorching him, he sat up and looked towar
d the sky, and saw a crystal cloud of white, sailing up from the horizon.
He watched it in utter fascination, for it never entered his head that it had been sent other than a special sign from the Sky People to him.
He saw it drift higher and higher. It seemed to grow in size. It mounted to the very center of the sky, and there it hovered.
He could swear that it remained fixed in that place, and began to grow larger, and larger, and brighter and brighter, until the whole glory of the sun was bursting out from it, and covering the universe with a dazzling white radiance.
He threw his arms above his head, with the palms of his hands turned up.
“Tarawa! Tarawa! Tarawa!” he cried. “I am worse than a dog; I am weaker than a woman; I am meaner than a dead coyote. Kill me now with your own thunder. I do not wish to live if I cannot be a good Cheyenne!”
Yes; he could vow that the cloud sank lower toward him. He tensed himself, waiting for the leaping of the thunderbolt; but it did not come, the cloud did not divide. And then tears again burst from his eyes and blinded him.
They were tears of joy and relief; for it seemed to him that there could have been no surer token that Tarawa did indeed place some value upon his life, and that the Sky People still saw some value in him.
When he had recovered himself again, his melancholy was less frantic, more steady and subdued. He saw a little huddle of brush about a water hole; and there he went to drink, and to be in the shade, and to think.
What he should do, he could not guess until the dark of the evening came.
Then, with hunger beginning to torture him, he stood up and began to journey back toward the village.
In the near distance, he paused and listened to the voices which floated out from it. All was so near and dear to Thunder Moon that it seemed to him he could recognize the very voices of the dogs; and certainly he knew the hoarse howling of that gray beast which belonged to the lodge of the medicine man, White Rain.
I cannot tell you how it made the heart of the boy ache to recognize this sound, and to remember the dark, stern, mysterious face of the master of the dog, and all the friendly faces that thronged in upon his memory, and all of the well-known tepees, with their designs etched upon the buffalo skins. But when he thought of the horribly ugly face of poor Big Hard Face, then he burst into tears and wept his heart out.
Afterward, he stole forward. It was true that, in comparison to Indian boys, he was a clumsy craftsman upon the trail. Still, he knew things which probably no other white boy in the world was familiar with. He could read at a glance signs that would have been invisible to the eyes of most white men, and he knew how to slip through a field of the tall prairie grass in the summer without making a sound and hardly a ripple in the tops of the grasses. He could do all of these things, and you may be sure that now he seemed to melt into the darkness of the surface of the ground.
He passed the outpost which rode rounds and kept guard all the night through; for the great chief Lame Eagle maintained some semblance of military order among his people. He went on to the outermost circle of the lodges, and as he passed on hands and knees the very first of the lot, he heard talk on subjects near to his heart.
For there, by the tepee of Little Beaver, surrounded by that great warrior, his friends and his family, stood the tallest, the noblest, the swiftest of all that wonderful race of horses whose forbears had been brought back from the far land by Big Hard Face. They were discussing the points of the stallion, learnedly. They were passing their hands over his limbs, wonderfully slender, but strong as iron. They were telling what great deeds would be done by Little Beaver, now that he had in his possession a horse so marvelous.
And that turned the talk upon Thunder Moon, and upon his shame, and upon the dreadful sacrifice which Big Hard Face had made in giving away all of his horses, saving his own war horse, which he had slain with his own hands and left lying before his tepee as a sacrifice to the gods to avert their anger.
Would that sacrifice of all the horses suffice to win back to Thunder Moon the manhood which he had lost?
There were shaken heads. Thunder Moon was a born coward and a disgrace to the Cheyenne name and race. Nothing could be done for him. He would never catch the eye of Tarawa, though Big Hard Face had done a thing which would be famous forever!
Thunder Moon listened, and his heart shrank within him. Then he dragged himself on, and set his teeth to stifle his sobbing.
He had come down to the village with no plan in mind, but now he had a definite goal before him. He would steal, if he could, the fine rifle which was his, from the lodge of his foster father. He would steal, also, one of his foster father’s horses, which had been given away on this day on account of shame. Thus equipped he would ride forth. He would find the Pawnees. He would die doing some splendid thing.
He trembled with enthusiasm and went forward with a clearer mind and a more earnest purpose until he came to the tepee of his foster father.
It was dark and silent. He raised the flap with the greatest caution, and peering within, he saw a single dark-red eye watching him. It was the last coal in the dying fire, and by it, at last, he saw the bowed form of White Crow, hooded in a robe.
He was startled at the sight. How could he have guessed that that withered and malicious hag cared for him enough to mourn in this manner for his shame?
He saw, furthermore, Big Hard Face sitting by the fire, bare to the waist, covered with war paint, his arms folded, waiting.
Thunder Moon well knew that, after a time, the great warrior would rise and go forth; and on the warpath he would attempt to show that all honor was not lost to the tepee of Big Hard Face.
And here by the entrance to the tent lay the body of the strong chestnut stallion which was said to be the father of all the chestnut race with which Big Hard Face had blessed the Cheyennes. Here was that very stallion which, with incredible daring, the warrior had stolen from that far land. He was old, now, this doughty stallion, but almost as swift and as strong as ever, and he would follow his master like a dog. Now he lay dead before the lodge.
And Thunder Moon knew that the heart of his father was utterly broken.
Chapter Ten
THE GREATNESS OF such a grief was overwhelming to young Thunder Moon. He had always known that his father loved him; now he saw that it was a love that counted all the joys in the world as nothing, compared with his joy in his son.
He took a bold step.
He felt that the fixed stare of the warrior was lost in infinite distance, and he, entering softly, would surely be unnoticed. So he glided inside the tepee, and like a shadow he reached the familiar place where his ammunition pouches and his rifle lay. The touch of them sent a thrill through him, in memory of that glad day when for the first time, he had brought back honor to the house of his father.
He raised the rifle. Strength as of steel entered his heart, and he stepped softly back to the entrance. Then he turned and glanced at Big Hard Face, and he found that the burning eyes of the Cheyenne were following him steadily. But not a word passed the lips of the veteran; not by a gesture, did he bid the boy to stay.
Outside, Thunder Moon paused and, with his eyes closed, drew down a few great breaths. Then he stepped across the fallen body of the horse and went back by the very way in which he had come. He felt that he had equipped himself with some manhood, but to make him man, complete, he needed to have that same glorious animal which was now in the possession of Little Beaver.
“Sunset,” they had called the horse when it was still a little colt, because in it the chestnut coat had turned to a deeper and a richer red. And he, Thunder Moon, had loved the colt from the beginning. It was a fiery young creature; but while it was still a yearling he had gentled it.
That was four years before. And ever since, Thunder Moon had worked and labored over the magnificent horse until the sight of its starred forehead meant more to him than the sight of a blazing diamond to a miser.
So he crept back
to the lodge of Little Beaver and lay down to wait. Hours and hours, with a truly Indian patience he waited, until the excited family group retired to the lodge, having admired their new treasure sufficiently.
Another hour or more he delayed; then he stepped to the stallion and touched it. Sunset turned his magnificent head and sniffed joyously at his young master, but never a sound did he make. For hours and hours, and for months and months, Thunder Moon had labored to teach the great stallion the value of silence. Never had there been a lesson more richly repaid in the learning than this one.
He untied the lead rope. He strapped a saddle on the sleek back. Then he glided on in the lead, and the great horse followed him, stepping panther-soft through the night.
On the outer edge of the village, he paused with a shudder of dread, for an outcry had burst forth in the town. No, it was only a clamor of dogs which presently scattered and then died out.
Then he leaped up into the saddle. He settled the rifle and the ammunition pouches. Yonder passed the slowly drifting shadow of the outer patrol. He waited until the rider had gone well by and over the next dip of ground; then he jogged Sunset forth into the night and beneath the bright faces of the stars.
An owl hooted almost at his shoulder. He turned and regarded, silently and calmly, the dim shadow which sped on, close to the ground. He had no doubt that this was a message from the Sky People; and furthermore, he had no doubt as to what it meant. They had sent the dismal owl forth to tell him that their eyes were upon him, and that in this journey he would surely die.
He could have smiled. He was certain that death was before him; he only wondered that he could be so calm, and that there was no tremor of his nerves as he faced the world of darkness.
Always, before, he had dreaded to venture out beyond the limits of the village; but now it seemed to him that the darkness was a kindly thing because it would cover him from the prying eyes of men. The stars burned wonderfully close, so that he could look up to them and imagine the lighted tepees of the streets of heaven where the warriors feasted and boasted all night long, and prepared, unwearied, to ride forth the next day to the fields of the chase and to the battle.