by Max Brand
“I, father?” asked the boy. “Are you not my father? Therefore, of course, I am one of your people!”
Big Hard Face started.
Now and again, a pang of doubt seized him, and he felt that perhaps it would have been better to raise this child with the knowledge that he was of a different blood, lest when the knowledge came to him it be too violent a shock and estrange the boy from him.
But now the thing was done and he felt that it could not be undone.
So it was all done, on that famous day, to the great expense of Big Hard Face, but to his lasting honor, and to that of his foster child.
As the feast drew to an end, Big Hard Face said to Lame Eagle:
“Is there any man who would dare to say that Thunder Moon is not a true Cheyenne and worthy of his blood?”
The great chief inhaled a breath of smoke from his pipe and then puffed it toward the sky.
“Perhaps he is even more worthy!” said he.
Chapter Seventeen
WHITE CROW, THE old aunt of Big Hard Face, pointed to spots and streaks of white on the quilled robe which was gathered about the shoulders of Thunder Moon.
“White is for life,” she said. “That is why I am glad of my name. White is for life; you see that I do not die. White is for life, not for a sleepy and dull life, but for a quick, busy, happy, active life.
“And,” she continued, “do you see this light blue, bordered all around with many-pointed stars? That, my child, is the blue of the heavens, and these stars are so many suns. It is a wish that your life may be that many times brighter than the lives of other people. And that blueness means that they pray your life will be serene and peaceful as the heavens are, when the Sky People have brushed all the clouds out of it. Here is green, too, to show that they hope you will always grow stronger, and bigger, and taller, and greater, and never begin to stoop and to bend — like me!
“There is much red, too. One can hardly tell what red means, until one has studied the whole robe. But usually it is a wish for warmth and a good home, with plenty of food, and rich blood always flowing richer in your body. These streaks of amber yellow hope that you may always grow more beautiful and perfect; and the black, of course, which you see here, shows that all the fighting will end, some day, and you will be at perfect peace!”
Thunder Moon, nineteen years old now, was proud of his robe, and he spread out another fold that more of it might be admired; and, in fact, it was a thing of beauty. All its surface was painted and quilled, the designs worked in closely and yet harmoniously; and it represented more hundreds of hours of work, when one considered the numbers of little porcupine quills which had to be sewed on and flattened in place, than one could imagine.
“I have worked on this robe myself,” said White Crow. “I have often sat with the women in the lodge of Little Beaver and whitened my hands to keep them from soiling the robe, and I have sewed with them. I am not the slowest woman among the Cheyennes in sewing quills, and neither am I the slowest in beading a moccasin. I do not need much light to work by, either. It is not for nothing that I have decorated thirty-seven robes!”
There was a rumbling voice from across the lodge, and Big Hard Face turned on his heap of buffalo robes, where he had been resting, and said: “Are you going to begin to tell about them all, like a warrior counting his coups?”
“Do not listen to him, if you wish to hear about this robe which you have,” said the squaw to the boy. “You see that there has been a great deal of work spent on it, and Little Beaver must have had some great idea in mind or he would not have made it a gift to you. I know that he wanted it for himself.”
“It was because no other young man among the Cheyennes has counted five coups, and killed eight men!” said Big Hard Face, rearing himself to a sitting posture and looking with eyes that blazed with pride upon his foster son. He added with a melancholy afterthought: “There are no scalps; but perhaps there will be a time for them!”
“No scalps,” repeated Thunder Moon with equal gloom. “I think that I shall never be able to take one.”
“My son,” said Big Hard Face, growing excited, for the subject never failed to make him furious, “do you not know that all the enemies who are not scalped may fight with you again in the Happy Hunting Grounds? And then you will have to kill them all again — if you can! But those who are scalped cannot go up among the Sky People. They would be laughed at, having no hair on their heads. After a while, their spirits rot away like their bodies. They are no more. The wolves pull their bones to pieces, and the spirits of those men fall apart and can never be put together again!”
“You have told me all that before,” sighed Thunder Moon.
He leaned his chin upon one fist. With the other hand he drew out a hunting knife, long and brilliant of blade, and heavy of shaft. He began to toss it with a flick, so that the point stuck into the post that held his saddle, war accouterments, medicine bag, and headdress. It was only a short distance; he could reach out his hand again and pluck the knife forth. But the trick consisted in driving the knife every time into one thin seam in the bark of the post. And the steady hand never failed.
“I have told you all of this before,” said Big Hard Face, “but a young man must listen fifty times to his father; and then, more. He must listen a hundred times, until he has learned the truth of the lesson. And you, Thunder Moon, have never learned!” He grew more and more excited. “Why should you kill them, then? It is only fighting with shadows, unless you take their scalps also.”
“Or their medicine bags,” put in White Crow defensively. “For he has taken three of those!”
Thunder Moon looked up a little hopefully, but the face of his foster father was darker than ever. He said: “What scalps hang in our tepee except those which I have taken? And when the stories and the stick pass around the circle, if it is asked what scalps have been taken, my son sits silent. He has never taken one. He has nothing to say, and no glory is brought to our home.”
“But when they count coups!” exclaimed the squaw. “Ah, that is a different matter, is it not?”
“Five coups are much, and eight dead men are much, also. But where are the scalps? Where are they?”
“I cannot tell why it is,” said Thunder Moon, deeper in gloom than ever. “But I have taken a dead man by the hair and caught my knife in my hand. But always my hand grows weak. I cannot use the knife. Suppose that there were life in him! Suppose that he were to groan under the cutting edge of the knife!” He dropped his head, suddenly, and raised a mighty hand before his face to shut out the vision. Big Hard Face glowered at his ancient aunt, and White Crow bit her lip and turned her head away, so that she might not view this sign of womanish weakness in her nephew.
“Listen to me!” cried Thunder Moon.
He leaped to his feet. The robe fell from him and revealed six feet of such masculine beauty and might as could not be equalled in all the heroic race of the Cheyennes. The eye of Big Hard Face glittered with satisfaction as he noted the rippling of those muscles.
In only one fashion could the marvelous beauty and strength of this figure be improved, and that would be by changing the sun-browned darkness of the skin to a still darker hue, tinted with a red copper color. However, nothing can be perfect. We must take what goods the Sky People send to us and not grumble too much for what they have forgotten to give.
“Listen to me, my father,” cried Thunder Moon. “I have sat in the circle and seen other men join in the scalp dance, while I was forced to be quiet, like a woman. This shall not be any longer. I am going to take out a band of young men. I am going to lead them on the warpath. I know what ones will follow me. I am not considered a woman among the young men of the tribe. They will follow me. I shall not take too many, so that there may be more prizes for the ones who ride with me. And when we come back, we shall all have scalps. We shall not return without them!”
White Crow threw up both her hands.
“See, Big Hard Face! You drive him o
ut to be murdered by the horse-stealing Pawnees, or by the wild Comanches!”
A single glance from the older warrior silenced her. He stood up in turn. There was nothing but the utmost satisfaction in his face.
“What is the age of Thunder Moon?” he asked.
“He has been nineteen summers with us,” said White Crow, eyeing the heroic form of the youngster with wonder and love.
“I have not heard before,” said Big Hard Face, “of a brave taking the warpath as a leader at that age. Are you sure that men will follow you, Thunder Moon?”
The young man smiled a little, not boastfully, but because his satisfaction could not be entirely concealed from the others.
He said: “Yes, there are some who will follow me. Many of them, I shall not take. I shall not pass the pipe in a crowd, and accept whoever would ride with me to pick up glory as a dog picks up scraps of food which others have left. But there are a few men that I have marked down, and them I shall permit to ride with me.”
Big Hard Face smiled in turn, with infinite content.
“My son,” said he gently, “is it truly your purpose to find scalps, and to take them, and bring them back, that the souls of our enemies may dissolve like dust?”
“It is,” said the boy.
“And do you know how to begin?”
“I know, but I should like to be told again, so that everything may be done right.”
“Then go to some wise man. I could tell you. I have told other men how to lead a party. But you, go to some friend and ask him.”
“To what friend shall I go, father?”
“To the wisest and the best man that you know.”
Thunder Moon picked up his robe and threw it carelessly over his shoulders. He drew upon his feet a pair of finely beaded moccasins. He took up his hunting knife, dropped it into the sheath, and with his long staff in his hand he stepped forth from the tepee.
He paused and looked about him; and from the lodges near by, since it was the evening of the day and most of the warriors had returned to their tepees, many a head was turned toward him.
Above all, half a dozen boys, who were wrestling and laughing near by, stopped their games, and turned to gape at the tall figure of the youthful warrior.
He made a sign. The whole group of youngsters sprang instantly to meet him.
“Which of you will carry a message to a friend for me?”
“I!” cried every pair of boyish lips.
He smiled down on them. Of all the stern young braves of the Cheyenne tribe, he was the only one who could spare time from the pursuit of honor, to romp and play with the children. He loved them, and they regarded him with a mixture of affection and awe such as men and children usually reserve for familiar gods.
“There is something for each of you to do,” said he. “You go to Yellow Wolf, and you to Snake-that-talks, and you to Young Hawk, and you to Big River, and you to Standing Bear. Tell each of them the same message. I wish to see them all at moonrise, at the edge of the river. Tell each of them not to fail. It is very important. Now, which one of you will deliver a wrong message?”
“If I make a mistake,” cried one of the youngsters, trembling with eagerness to serve this god, “I shall tear off a strip of skin from my shoulder to my wrist, in honor of Tarawa.”
“That is enough,” smiled Thunder Moon.
He waved to them, and they were away like so many dogs, each flying along a different course, each furious with zeal to please his patron. Thunder Moon watched them out of sight and laughed pleasantly to himself. Then he went on through the village.
He paused to admire the tepee of High Hawk. It was fast nearing completion now, and the bands of decoration had been brought almost to the edge of the ground. A whole group of men and women were gathered here, to wonder at the beautiful quillwork of stars and concentric circles, and all the fine colors with which it was furnished, and all the paintings, enough to make a legendary history of the family which was to occupy the lodge.
And as he went off, he heard the shrill voice of an old woman saying: “When Thunder Moon takes a squaw, what manner of lodge he will build! That will be a thing to travel ten days to see!”
Yes, plainly the tribe was well pleased with him, in spite of this matter of the absence of scalps, which irritated his father so bitterly. So he went on, more content, until he reached the lodge of Lame Eagle.
Chapter Eighteen
THE TEPEE OF the war chief stood toward the center of the village, and Lame Eagle himself was at the entrance to his spacious lodge, examining, in detail, a horse which had been presented to him that same day. It was a beautiful, cream-colored mustang, perfect in every part. Thunder Moon stood by and admired it in his turn.
“You have come to tell me if this is a good horse, Thunder Moon,” said the chief, “because you know all about horses.”
“My father knows,” said the young man modestly. “I only remember what I have heard him say. But if you wish me to speak of this horse, I should say that he would be good for hunting buffalo. But I would not ride him to battle where the race might be a long one and where there are not apt to be many other horses to change to.”
Lame Eagle frowned a little at this unpleasant news.
“Why do you tell me that? I was given fifty horses to choose among, and I chose this cream-colored horse.”
“He has a good color, and he will not sweat soon,” said the boy, “but his shoulders are not good. They should be more sloping. Do you see how upright they are? Note also, that he is too rangy, too long of back, too light in the loin to pack much weight. He would carry a boy or a small man very well. But he will be ruined if he runs very far under your weight.”
The war chief turned, and the feathers in his headdress nodded at the youth. The frown presently vanished from his face.
“You are a truth teller, Thunder Moon,” said he. “And some day you will grow so wise that you will know only old men. No others are able to put truth in the stomach and grow fat on it!”
“I don’t understand what you mean by that,” protested Thunder Moon.
“You will remember it some other day, however,” said the chief. “There is White Rain. He looks sad today, does he not?”
The medicine man went by with a long stride, muffled high about the face in his robe, so that only his hooked nose and his burning eyes showed above it.
To the war chief he raised a hand in salutation, and then he passed on.
“He did not see me,” said Thunder Moon grimly. “I have brought him more presents than any ten of the other young men of the nation, and yet he does not see me, Lame Eagle. Can you tell me why?”
“He grows old,” said the chief, “and old men sometimes see only their own thoughts.”
The young brave smiled, as grimly as before. “That answer,” said he, “went around a corner before it came to me.”
Lame Eagle shrugged his shoulders, as he saw that he would have to give a clearer explanation.
Then he said: “Where shall we talk?”
“It is serious talk,” remarked Thunder Moon.
“Then come with me into the tepee.”
They went in together. The chief sat opposite the entrance, his guns beside him, enjoying the comfort of the back rest, and let his eyes wander over the splendor of the furnishings, until his eyes raised to the exposed trophies — the scalps which had been taken by this Achilles of the plains.
They were fifteen in number, and the coups which the hero had counted had been over twenty. As for the dead men who had fallen before him, their number could only be guessed at. Then the glance of the youth reverted to the sinewy hands of Lame Eagle, and his heart swelled suddenly and sternly in his breast. For if it came to a matter of single combat, then he told himself that he would not fear Lame Eagle. No, he would not fear him by day or night, on foot or mounted, with knife, club, bare hands, or rifle; besides, what man in the nation would dare to confront Thunder Moon with the war bow, which he had been so long
in mastering, but which at last he had made such a perfect servant? He squinted his eyes a little and thought of it in his father’s lodge, made of toughest horn, and half an arm’s stretch longer, and much thicker and stronger than this bow in the tent of the war leader.
Yes, when it came to battle, he would stride as far in the face of danger as this man, and he told his heart of hearts that long before he reached the age of Lame Eagle, he should have far passed the mark in trophies which that fighter had established. Not that Thunder Moon was entirely vainglorious. For he knew that sheer might and cunning of hand did not make a great chief.
“Will you take the pipe?” asked the chief, reaching for that instrument of solemnity.
“Let it be as if we had smoked,” said the boy. “I do not wish for the pipe. Tell me first, Lame Eagle, why White Rain hates me so much?”
“You have not been able to guess that?” smiled the leader.
“No.”
“We shall eat, and then we shall talk.”
Thunder Moon hastily swallowed a morsel of the food which was offered to him by a diligent and attentive squaw.
“I am filled with my own thoughts,” said he. “Let us have talk. And tell me first about White Rain.”
The chief first took the pipe; and having filled and lighted it, he blew a little puff of smoke to the ground, in manner of libation to the earth spirits, and another into the air above his head, in honor of the Sky People. After that, he began to smoke quietly, half closing his eyes in enjoyment.
But he was even more thoughtful than contented, and from time to time, as he talked, his glance flashed keenly to the side and studied the expression of his young guest.