Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “This is well,” said the voice of the warrior, but there was disappointment in it.

  His step withdrew, and Big Hard Face said:

  “There will be many other days when the warriors will draw for sides and sit in the council tent, and the stick will be passed for deeds to be told and coups to be counted. Then, you may tell again what you have done! But let this day be mine. I have been a poor man; now I am counting my riches.”

  And he looked upward, where the thin smoke from the fire crept up through the hole in the top of the lodge, but could not obscure, in passing, the rich blue of the heavens beyond.

  “I have not spoken,” said Thunder Moon softly, “and I shall not speak of it. It does not please the Sky People for me to tell of what they have done for me. But now, father, open your mind and tell me the things which I do not know.”

  “Ask me, my son, and I shall answer if I may.”

  “In the battle, father, when I saw the Pawnees riding, I was not afraid. I saw them come, with their guns and with their bows, but I was not afraid; I was happy when I rode down on them. But when I stood up on the hill, and faced the sun, and saw the knife in your hand, I was afraid of the pain. I was not afraid to die. But I was afraid of pain. How could that be? How could it be that, though I wanted to be brave, I was a coward? How could it be that I loved you, and yet I disgraced you?”

  Big Hard Face lowered his glance and stared straight before him, thinking of the misery of the days which had been.

  “We are made, my son,” said he, “by a more skillful hand than the hands of women. He knows how to fashion us so that each of us has a strength. Some of us are brave by night and weak by day, and some are weak by night and brave by day. Some are fortunate in battle, but their lodges hold no peace for them. Some are rich and fortunate in their villages, but never count a coup in war. All our blessings come from the Sky People, and if they give them all to one man, will he not be like the Sky People, themselves? There will be nothing for him to envy in the sky. Therefore they are afraid to let any man be too happy!”

  “That, father, seems very wise and true. But when I think of Lame Eagle, I wonder what sorrow could ever come to him. Surely, he has always been perfect, and wise, and great, and good!”

  The warrior smiled.

  “Do you think so? Lame Eagle is a great chief,” said he. “But he has had his sorrows. When he was a younger brave, and his fame was only beginning, he married a beautiful girl; and she died giving birth to a son. That son lived to be a handsome little boy, then he died also in a summer heat. Those are sorrows, are they not?”

  “Ah, yes,” said young Thunder Moon, “and that tells me why it is that Lame Eagle is so often grave.”

  “Yes,” said Big Hard Face, “and who can tell how often the heart of Lame Eagle turns after those whom he loved, and who slipped out of his hands, like water or sand.”

  “Ah,” said Thunder Moon, “but what a pity that so great and good a man should have to suffer so!”

  “Perhaps his suffering helps to make him great and good,” said Big Hard Face. “The things we know, we feel for. If you have never been frostbitten, you smile at the man with a swollen foot; but if you have once been pinched by the frost, you offer him remedies. Perhaps Lame Eagle is so popular because he has suffered even more than most men, and that has made him kinder to them.”

  “There is old Two Bull Elk, though,” said the boy. “He has lost nearly all his brothers and sons in battle; but that sorrow has only made him cruel. He kicks every boy that comes near him, and he snarls at the men.”

  “Men are like plants, child,” said Big Hard Face. “Some have roots that lie only on the surface of the ground, to drink the rain quickly; if you dig around them, you break the roots, and the plant will die. And some have roots that sink deeply down into the earth. Those plants can be cultivated, and it makes the root stronger and the plant richer and greater. So there are men whom troubles disturb and destroy; and there are men whom troubles waken and make stronger and better. Such shallow-rooted men are like Two Bull Elk; and such great and noble men are like Lame Eagle. He would rather see a friend win a victory than win one himself; and I have never heard him speak of his own deeds as he spoke of yours, today. But I have seen him break the battle line of the Blackfeet, like a wind breaking a scattered line of straws, or like you, my son, breaking the line of the Pawnees!”

  “Ah,” said Thunder Moon, “That was only because I came on the Pawnees by surprise, and they were frightened. They must have thought that there were other men coming behind me, and that they had been trapped. Three Feathers, who might have told them what to do, was down.”

  But Big Hard Face lifted his head and smiled, and worshiped this handsome son of his with a long and joyous glance.

  “You know already,” said he, “that the hero has no wits when the leader is killed. Ho, Thunder Moon, if I were a young man again, would we not ride on the warpath together? Perhaps I still am not too old!”

  So they talked together in the tepee, until they began to hear the noise of the drum muffled by many chanting voices, and now and again a long-drawn war whoop thrilling through the air.

  White Crow set open the flap of the lodge entrance, and they sat and listened.

  It was the dusk of the day. Now, looking to the west, they could see the flames of the fire straining the air with crimson; and now and then, when fresh brush was thrown on the blaze, a great yellow head of flame leaped up and sailed, like a phantom of brightness, toward the sky, only to be snuffed out instantly.

  Sometimes the chanting ceased, and there was only the light throbbing of the drum; and out of the distance they could catch the murmur of a single man’s voice, shouting a chant. They could easily picture to themselves the eager faces in the massed circle and around the light of the fire, one half-naked brave dancing, with the firelight glittering on his copper body, while he chanted of his deeds, and the great things that had happened on the warpath.

  White Crow had taken up a pair of moccasins. She did not need light to guide her skillful fingers; and as she beaded the moccasins, she began to sing. It was merely a murmur which passed like an undertone through the distant noise of the war dance around the fire. The man and boy listened. They were content. They raised their faces, now and then, to the brightness of the stars, and smiled.

  Chapter Fifteen

  NOT MUCH SLEEP came to Thunder Moon that night; for now and then, when his eyes grew heavy, a fresh wave of joy would rush over him and leave him trembling, breathing short, and wide awake with happiness. Twice he got up, and went to Sunset, and talked to the great horse; and the stallion lowered his head and listened with shining eyes that reflected the starlight; and he seemed to understand.

  But at last the gray dawn came. A chill settled in the air. Dogs began to bark here and there, in distant quarters of the camp. A child cried near by. The sharp scent of wood smoke drifted through the air as the noises of day commenced.

  Big Hard Face and his son stood up from their beds and went down to the river. They plunged in and swam across to the far bank and back again; then they whipped the water from their hard bodies, with the edges of their palms, dressed, and went toward the village.

  On the way, others met them with cheerful, respectful greetings. But one thing impressed young Thunder Moon more than all else.

  He passed a youth of fourteen, going with his father and uncle toward the river. The boy pressed close to the older men, and stared at Thunder Moon, and pointed; in fact, he seemed half afraid, as though he were close to some terrible and wonderful phenomenon. Yet that same boy had often cuffed the ears of Thunder Moon, and downed him in wrestling bouts, and beaten him in swimming and foot racing, and mocked at his futile efforts with the war bow!

  How their relationship was changed, now!

  They reached their tepee. To their astonishment, White Crow was not there. Neither was the pot of buffalo meat steaming above the fire for their breakfast, but the place was empty and
deserted, and even the few robes and the war bow, and the other possessions which had remained to Big Hard Face, and the rifle, and Sunset, which belonged to Thunder Moon, had vanished.

  “This is very strange,” said Big Hard Face. “Hush! Say nothing. We shall soon learn. That grinning woman knows something!”

  The squaw at the open flap of the next tepee watched them with a smile which stretched from ear to ear.

  “Where has White Crow gone?” asked Big Hard Face.

  The squaw laughed heartily, and shook with her mirth.

  “Perhaps she has run away with some handsome young Cheyenne. She did not wait to tell you about the marriage. She has eloped, perhaps.”

  Even the anxious Thunder Moon could not help smiling in turn at this idea as he thought of the ugly, time-withered face of White Crow. However, the loss was very serious, if loss it were. The rifle and Sunset at one blow — it almost offset all the glories which he had won on the trail the day before!

  “There is a joke. Act as if nothing were wrong,” said Big Hard Face. “All the Cheyennes want to laugh at us. When men praise you today they wish to laugh at you tomorrow!”

  That bit of wisdom entered the heart of Thunder Moon, and never left it, thereafter.

  They passed a boy, playing with his dog, hitching a little travois on its impatient shoulders.

  “Have you seen White Crow?”

  The imp looked up with a broad grin.

  “She has gone home,” said he.

  He would say no more, but burst into peals of merriment as they watched and stared at him.

  “Tush!” said Big Hard Face, gritting his teeth. “They are making fools of us. If I had so much as a pony, I would ride out and hunt buffalo and forget about them until night. But I have not even a bow, not even a play bow!”

  They walked on, in search of their vanished possessions.

  Presently, they came upon a greater stir and commotion. The sun was brightening the heavens to rose and pink, now, and all the life in the city was on foot and busy.

  A familiar tepee rose before them, its top decorated with the image of a great crimson bear. Well did they know it, for it was the handsome home in which Big Hard Face had lived, up to the time of his disgrace.

  Now, both he and the boy paused to look at it.

  Thunder Moon sighed and looked quickly up into the face of his foster father.

  “Ah,” said he, “what a price I have cost you!”

  “Do you think so?” asked the Indian. “I tell you, my son, there is no counted price for glory. You cannot buy it with ten horses or with ten thousand. The gods have taken what they wished from me, but it was my sorrow and my prayers that they wanted more than my goods. Do not think of that lodge, for I have already forgotten it!”

  But Thunder Moon knew that this was merely a kind lie; for that lodge had been a sort of tribal pride, and if a party of Sioux came to visit their allies, they were sure to be led slowly past the tepee of Big Hard Face, that they might be shown in what splendor a Cheyenne could reside.

  They drew a little nearer to the old home, and as they did so, a cry burst involuntarily from the lips of young Thunder Moon; for he saw assembled around the tepee the whole herd of chestnuts, all of those glorious horses which had been the delight of Big Hard Face.

  In a dozen years, the descendants of the original four horses, which Big Hard Face had brought from the far lands, had increased to a score and four. The least of them could make a mock of the swiftest and most enduring pony that any other tribe of the plain could boast. The breeding of that herd had been the joy of Big Hard Face — that, and the growth of his son. The growth of Thunder Moon had carried with it as many heartbreaks as joys; but the growth of the herd had been one ceaseless triumph.

  He had parted with all of those beauties, and now, as he looked upon them again, a strange sound rose to his lips, and he trembled violently. Thunder Moon regarded him with terror. He had never seen Big Hard Face so nearly unmanned before.

  “If they had wings, they would all be eagles, and they would chase all the other eagles out of the round arch of the sky,” said Big Hard Face in a broken voice. “Yes, Tarawa would receive them with joy! But they have no wings, so they are only the lords of the earth! They are the chiefs. Other horses are not worthy to follow them!”

  As a matter of fact, he was about right. He had received a peerless strain of English thoroughbreds, and he had selected the finest of the stock with a sure instinct; and under his care, on the broad plains, they had grown not less swift, or beautiful, or docile, but infinitely hardier, more enduring, more courageous, with thews of iron and hearts that dreaded nothing. They would face a charging bull, or a maddened band of wolves. One might hunt ten thousand miles, and never come upon another band such as these.

  “Look!” exclaimed Thunder Moon suddenly. “There is Sunset among them! What can have happened? Who can have brought all of your horses together? And how did they dare to take Sunset? What can it all mean?”

  “Do not ask,” said the warrior. “My heart is too full to make an answer. I already begin to suspect — and yet it would be too wonderful to be true. It cannot be!”

  They went on, with feet that stumbled in their haste.

  They passed through the herd of horses; and as they did so, the beautiful creatures turned their heads and whinnied recognition of their masters. They had been under the care of strange hands; and many of their backs were marked by the pressure of cruel saddles; and they no longer knew the gentle treatment with which they had been reared.

  On through the horses they passed, touching sleek flanks and polished necks, until they stood before the tepee and saw, within the flap, White Crow, who seemed to await their arrival.

  “You are very late,” said White Crow.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “SAY NOT A word,” Big Hard Face cautioned his foster child.

  Then he added in a hoarse whisper: “I suspected when I first saw. But I cannot be right. This is earth and not heaven. It is all a joke or a dream. Do we sleep, Thunder Moon?”

  They entered the tepee. There was the meat pot steaming over the fire. Thunder Moon spied a dear possession.

  “My rifle!” he cried.

  He leaped to it.

  “Stop!” called Big Hard Face. “Do not touch it. It is in the lodge of a stranger. It is not yours until he admits that you own it. This is all very strange. White Crow, will you gape and gasp like a starved bird in a nest? Or will you open your foolish throat and tell us what it all means?”

  “What should it mean?” asked White Crow with a shrug of her shoulders. “Cannot your eyes tell you that you are at home, and that I have been waiting for you long enough?”

  “Home?” echoed Big Hard Face. “Home?”

  “Bah!” The squaw was impatient with them. “Will you never eat and have done talking? Are the horses to stand there all day and starve themselves?”

  “The horses?” echoed Big Hard Face.

  “Aye, the horses. Are they to starve?”

  “What have we to do with the horses?” cried the warrior, beginning to shake again like a man with the palsy. “What are they to me?”

  “Ho?” grunted White Crow. “Then I am growing blind. And I have let them tie the horses at the wrong tepee.”

  “Certainly you have.”

  “Then you are not the old warrior, Big Hard Face?”

  Big Hard Face threw up his hands to heaven.

  “Tarawa, give me patience. Do not let me strike this foolish woman because she lays on me words worse than whips! Foolish White Crow, tell me what it means!”

  All at once, the squaw began to weep. She reached for Thunder Moon; and though he could hardly remember in his entire life a single caress which she had given him, now she bent her head on his shoulder and began to shudder and sob.

  “Do you not see?” she stammered. “You paid too great a price. You offered the whole of your horses, and everything you owned. But only the life of the first re
d stallion was enough, the first horse, your own horse, that you carried back with you from the Far Land! The gods did not want them all. They took only that one dead horse. Now they give back to you all the living ones!”

  Not even then, could the warrior understand what had happened; but first he walked aimlessly around the tepee and picked up long-familiar things.

  The wealth that he had spent his life collecting, and which he had distributed through the entire tribe to his friends, had now been collected again, and replaced in his tepee. There was not so much as a single knife missing — not so much as a single pipe, or horn spoon, or painted buffalo robe, or back rest.

  Then, gradually, Big Hard Face knew. He rushed to the door of the tepee, to fling himself out among his horses, to embrace them, to pass his hands over their beautiful limbs and sleek bodies, to call them by their names, to pet them, and love them like a madman.

  When he returned to the big lodge, he saw that there were other Cheyennes slyly watching from the entrance of other lodges. He controlled himself and turned back into the lodge.

  “Do you see, White Crow?” said he. “It is as I always said that it would be. You told me that the boy had ruined me. I told you that there was more richness in a son than in a herd of such horses. Look! On account of him, I lost them; on account of him, I gain them back again.”

  White Crow was drying her eyes.

  “They are all angels,” said she. “All the Cheyennes are angels!”

  In fact, it was an occurrence unprecedented in Cheyenne tribal history; for, of the rich gifts of the unhappy warrior, not one had been retained, but all had been returned to this man whose foster son had helped to make the tribe famous and dreaded on the plains. The deeds that men do, said Lame Eagle, have a great value; but the deeds that children do are far greater. Whereas a man may have only the strength of his muscle, a child has the help of Tarawa; and muscle is nothing, compared with the strength of the Sky People.

  “Go out and run to your friends. Tell them to give you plenty of buffalo meat,” commanded Big Hard Face. “Today we are going to make a feast. It will be a feast to the whole tribe. They shall all come to our lodge, and sit there, and eat, and smoke, in honor of my son, to show that my son and I honor them. We are one people; we are one blood; we are one kin; you and I and all of the Cheyennes! Do you doubt it, Thunder Moon?”