by Wister, Owen
Stems of smoke, faint and blue, spindled up from a blurred acre of willow thicket, dense, tall as two men, a netted brown and yellow mesh of twigs and stiff wintry rods. Out from the level of their close, nature-woven tops rose at distances the straight, slight blue smoke-lines, marking each the position of some invisible lodge. The whole acre was a bottom ploughed at some former time by a wash-out, and the troops looked down on it from the edge of the higher ground, silent in the quiet, gray afternoon, the empty sage-brush territory stretching a short way to fluted hills that were white below and blackened with pines above.
THE CHARGE
The General, taking a rough chance as he often did, sent ground scouts forward and ordered a charge instantly, to catch the savages unready; and the stiff rods snapped and tangled between the beating hoofs. The horses plunged at the elastic edges of this excellent fortress, sometimes half lifted as a bent willow levered up against their bellies, and the forward-tilting men fended their faces from the whipping twigs. They could not wedge a man’s length into that pliant labyrinth, and the General called them out. They rallied among the sage-brush above, Crook’s cheeks and many others painted with purple lines of blood, hardened already and cracking like enamel. The baffled troopers glared at the thicket. Not a sign nor a sound came from in there. The willows, with the gentle tints of winter veiling their misty twigs, looked serene and even innocent, fitted to harbor birds—not birds of prey—and the quiet smoke threaded upwards through the air. Of course the liniment-drinkers must have heard the noise.
“What do you suppose they’re doing?” inquired Glynn.
“Looking at us,” said Crook.
“I wish we could return the compliment,” said the captain.
Crook pointed. Had any wind been blowing, what the General saw would have been less worth watching. Two willow branches shook, making a vanishing ripple on the smooth surface of the tree-tops. The pack-train was just coming in sight over the rise, and Crook immediately sent an orderly with some message. More willow branches shivered an instant and were still; then, while the General and the captain sat on their horses and watched, the thicket gave up its secret to them; for, as little light gusts coming abreast over a lake travel and touch the water, so in different spots the level maze of twigs was stirred; and if the eye fastened upon any one of these it could have been seen to come out from the centre towards the edge, successive twigs moving, as the tops of long grass tremble and mark the progress of a snake. During a short while this increased greatly, the whole thicket moving with innumerable tracks. Then everything ceased, with the blue wands of smoke rising always into the quiet afternoon.
“Can you see ’em?” said Glynn.
“Not a bit. Did you happen to hear any one give an estimate of this band?”
Glynn mentioned his tale of the three hundred.
It was not new to the General, but he remarked now that it must be pretty nearly correct; and his eye turned a moment upon his forty troopers waiting there, grim and humorous; for they knew that the thicket was looking at them, and it amused their American minds to wonder what the Old Man was going to do about it.
“It’s his bet, and he holds poor cards,” murmured Specimen Jones; and the neighbors grinned.
And here the Old Man continued the play that he had begun when he sent the orderly to the pack-train. That part of the command had halted in consequence, disposed itself in an easy-going way, half in, half out of sight on the ridge, and men and mules looked entirely careless. Glynn wondered; but no one ever asked the General questions, in spite of his amiable voice and countenance. He now sent for Sarah the squaw.
“You tell E-egante,” he said, “that I am not going to fight with his people unless his people make me. I am not going to do them any harm, and I wish to be their friend. The White Father has sent me. Ask E-egante if he has heard of Gray Fox. Tell him Gray Fox wishes E-egante and all his people to be ready to go with him to-morrow at nine o’clock.”
And Sarah, standing on the frozen bank, pulled her green shawl closer, and shouted her message faithfully to the willows. Nothing moved or showed, and Crook, riding up to the squaw, held his hand up as a further sign to the flag of peace that had been raised already. “Say that I am Gray Fox,” said he.
On that there was a moving in the bushes farther along, and, going opposite that place with the squaw, Crook and Glynn saw a narrow entrance across which some few branches reached that were now spread aside for three figures to stand there.
“E-egante!” said Sarah, eagerly. “See him big man!” she added to Crook, pointing. A tall and splendid buck, gleaming with colors, and rich with fringe and buckskin, watched them. He seemed to look at Sarah, too. She, being ordered, repeated what she had said; but the chief did not answer.
“He is counting our strength,” said Glynn.
“He’s done that some time ago,” said Crook. “Tell E-egante,” he continued to the squaw, “that I will not send for more soldiers than he sees here. I do not wish anything but peace unless he wishes otherwise.”
Sarah’s musical voice sounded again from the bank, and E-egante watched her intently till she was finished. This time he replied at some length. He and his people had not done any harm. He had heard of Gray Fox often. All his people knew Gray Fox was a good man and would not make trouble. There were some flies that stung a man sitting in his house, when he had not hurt them. Gray Fox would not hurt any one till their hand was raised against him first. E-egante and his people had wondered why the horses made so much noise just now. He and his people would come to-morrow with Gray Fox.
And then he went inside the thicket again, and the willows looked as innocent as ever. Crook and the captain rode away.
“My speech was just a little weak coming on top of a charge of cavalry,” the General admitted. “And that fellow put his finger right on the place. I’ll give you my notion, captain. If I had said we had more soldiers behind the hill, like as not this squaw of ours would have told him I lied; she’s an uncertain quantity, I find. But I told him the exact truth—that I had no more—and he won’t believe it, and that’s what I want.”
So Glynn understood. The pack-train had been halted in a purposely exposed position, which would look to the Indians as if another force was certainly behind it, and every move was now made to give an impression that the forty were only the advance of a large command. Crook pitched his A tent close to the red men’s village, and the troops went into camp regardlessly near. The horses were turned out to graze ostentatiously unprotected, so that the people in the thicket should have every chance to notice how secure the white men felt. The mules pastured comfortably over the shallow snow that crushed as they wandered among the sage-bush, and the square bell hung once more from the neck of the leader and tankled upon the hill. The shelter-tents littered the flat above the wash-out, and besides the cook-fire others were built irregularly far down the Malheur North Fork, shedding an extended glimmer of deceit. It might have been the camp of many hundred. A little blaze shone comfortably on the canvas of Crook’s tent, and Sergeant Keyser, being in charge of camp, had adopted the troop cook-fire for his camp guard after the cooks had finished their work. The willow thicket below grew black and mysterious, and quiet fell on the white camp. By eight the troopers had gone to bed. Night had come pretty cold, and a little occasional breeze, that passed like a chill hand laid a moment on the face, and went down into the willows. Now and again the water running through the ice would lap and gurgle at some air-hole. Sergeant Keyser sat by his fire and listened to the lonely bell sounding from the dark. He wished the men would feel more at home with him. With Jack Long, satirical, old, and experienced, they were perfectly familiar, because he was a civilian; but to Keyser, because he had been in command of a battalion, they held the attitude of school-boys to a master—the instinctive feeling of all privates towards all officers. Jones and Cumnor were members of his camp guard. Being just now off post, they stood at the fire, but away from him.
“How
do you like this compared with barracks?” the sergeant asked, conversationally.
“It’s all right,” said Jones.
“Did you think it was all right that first morning? I didn’t enjoy it much myself. Sit down and get warm, won’t you?”
The men came and stood awkwardly. “I ’ain’t never found any excitement in getting up early,” said Jones, and was silent. A burning log shifted, and the bell sounded in a new place as the leader pastured along. Jones kicked the log into better position. “But this affair’s gettin’ inter-esting,” he added.
“Don’t you smoke?” Keyser inquired of Cumnor, and tossed him his tobacco-pouch. Presently they were seated, and the conversation going better. Arizona was compared with Idaho. Everybody had gone to bed.
“Arizona’s the most outrageous outrage in the United States,” declared Jones.
“Why did you stay there six years, then?” said Cumnor.
“Guess I’d been there yet but for you comin’ along and us both enlistin’ that crazy way. Idaho’s better. Only,” said Jones, thoughtfully, “coming to an ice-box from a hundred thousand in the shade, it’s a wonder a man don’t just split like a glass chimbly.”
The willows crackled, and all laid hands on their pistols.
“How! how!” said a strange, propitiating voice.
It was a man on a horse, and directly they recognized E-egante himself. They would have raised an alarm, but he was alone, and plainly not running away. Nor had he weapons. He rode into the fire-light, and “How! how!” he repeated, anxiously. He looked and nodded at the three, who remained seated.
“Good-evening,” said the sergeant.
“Christmas is coming,” said Jones, amicably.
“How! how!” said E-egante. It was all the English he had. He sat on his horse, looking at the men, the camp, the cook-fire, the A tent, and beyond into the surrounding silence. He started when the bell suddenly jangled near by. The wandering mule had only shifted in towards the camp and shaken his head; but the Indian’s nerves were evidently on the sharpest strain.
“Sit down!” said Keyser, making signs, and at these E-egante started suspiciously.
“Warm here!” Jones called to him, and Cumnor showed his pipe.
The chief edged a thought closer. His intent, brilliant eyes seemed almost to listen as well as look, and though he sat his horse with heedless grace and security, there was never a figure more ready for vanishing upon the instant. He came a little nearer still, alert and pretty as an inquisitive buck antelope, watching not the three soldiers only, but everything else at once. He eyed their signs to dismount, looked at their faces, considered, and with the greatest slowness got off and came stalking to the fire. He was a fine tall man, and they smiled and nodded at him, admiring his clean blankets and the magnificence of his buckskin shirt and leggings.
“He’s a jim-dandy,” said Cumnor.
“You bet the girls think so,” said Jones. “He gets his pick. For you’re a fighter too, ain’t y’u?” he added, to E-egante.
“How! how!” said that personage, looking at them with grave affability from the other side of the fire. Reassured presently, he accepted the sergeant’s pipe; but even while he smoked and responded to the gestures, the alertness never left his eye, and his tall body gave no sense of being relaxed. And so they all looked at each other across the waning embers, while the old pack-mule moved about at the edge of camp, crushing the crusted snow and pasturing along. After a time E-egante gave a nod, handed the pipe back, and went into his thicket as he had come. His visit had told him nothing; perhaps he had never supposed it would, and came from curiosity. One person had watched this interview. Sarah the squaw sat out in the night, afraid for her ancient hero; but she was content to look upon his beauty, and go to sleep after he had taken himself from her sight. The soldiers went to bed, and Keyser lay wondering for a while before he took his nap between his surveillances. The little breeze still passed at times, the running water and the ice made sounds together, and he could hear the wandering bell, now distant on the hill, irregularly punctuating the flight of the dark hours.
By nine next day there was the thicket sure enough, and the forty waiting for the three hundred to come out of it. Then it became ten o’clock, but that was the only difference, unless perhaps Sarah the squaw grew more restless. The troopers stood ready to be told what to do, joking together in low voices now and then; Crook sat watching Glynn smoke; and through these stationary people walked Sarah, looking wistfully at the thicket, and then at the faces of the adopted race she served. She hardly knew what was in her own mind. Then it became eleven, and Crook was tired of it, and made the capping move in his bluff. He gave the orders himself.
“Sergeant.”
Keyser saluted.
“You will detail eight men to go with you into the Indian camp. The men are to carry pistols under their overcoats, and no other arms. You will tell the Indians to come out. Repeat what I said to them last night. Make it short. I’ll give them ten minutes. If they don’t come by then a shot will be fired out here. At that signal you will remain in there and blaze away at the Indians.”
So Keyser picked his men.
The thirty-one remaining troopers stopped joking, and watched the squad of nine and the interpreter file down the bank to visit the three hundred. The dingy overcoats and the bright green shawl passed into the thicket, and the General looked at his watch. Along the bend of the stream clear noises tinkled from the water and the ice.
“What are they up to?” whispered a teamster to Jack Long. Long’s face was stern, but the teamster’s was chalky and tight drawn. “Say,” he repeated, insistently, “what are we going to do?”
“We’re to wait,” Long whispered back, “till nothin’ happens, and then th’ Ole Man’ll fire a gun and signal them boys to shoot in there.”
“Oh, it’s to be waitin’?” said the teamster. He fastened his eyes on the thicket, and his lips grew bloodless. The running river sounded more plainly. “—— —— it!” cried the man, desperately, “let’s start the fun, then.” He whipped out his pistol, and Jack Long had just time to seize him and stop a false signal.
“Why, you must be skeered,” said Long. “I’ve a mind to beat yer skull in.”
“Waitin’s so awful,” whimpered the man. “I wisht I was along with them in there.”
Jack gave him back his revolver. “There,” said he; “ye’re not skeered, I see. Waitin’ ain’t nice.”
The eight troopers with Keyser were not having anything like so distasteful a time. “Jock,” said Specimen Jones to Cumnor, as they followed the sergeant into the willows and began to come among the lodges and striped savages, “you and me has saw Injuns before, Jock.”
“And we’ll do it again,” said Cumnor.
Keyser looked at his watch: Four minutes gone. “Jones,” said he, “you patrol this path to the right so you can cover that gang there. There must be four or five lodges down that way. Cumnor, see that dugout with side-thatch and roofing of tule? You attend to that family. It’s a big one—all brothers.” Thus the sergeant disposed his men quietly and quick through the labyrinth till they became invisible to each other; and all the while flights of Indians passed, half seen, among the tangle, fleeting visions of yellow and red through the quiet-colored twigs. Others squatted stoically, doing nothing. A few had guns, but most used arrows, and had these stacked beside them where they squatted. Keyser singled out a somewhat central figure—Fur Cap was his name—as his starting-point if the signal should sound. It must sound now in a second or two. He would not look at his watch lest it should hamper him. Fur Cap sat by a pile of arrows, with a gun across his knees besides. Keyser calculated that by standing close to him as he was, his boot would catch the Indian under the chin just right, and save one cartridge. Not a red man spoke, but Sarah the squaw dutifully speechified in a central place where paths met near Keyser and Fur Cap. Her voice was persuasive and warning. Some of the savages moved up and felt Keyser’s over
coat. They fingered the hard bulge of the pistol underneath, and passed on, laughing, to the next soldier’s coat, while Sarah did not cease to harangue. The tall, stately man of last night appeared. His full dark eye met Sarah’s, and the woman’s voice faltered and her breathing grew troubled as she gazed at him. Once more Keyser looked at his watch: Seven minutes. E-egante noticed Sarah’s emotion, and his face showed that her face pleased him. He spoke in a deep voice to Fur Cap, stretching a fringed arm out towards the hill with a royal gesture, at which Fur Cap rose.
“He will come, he will come!” said the squaw, running to Keyser. “They all come now. Do not shoot.”
“Let them show outside, then,” thundered Keyser, “or it’s too late. If that gun goes before I can tell my men—”
He broke off and rushed to the entrance. There were skirmishers deploying from three points, and Crook was raising his hand slowly. There was a pistol in it. “General! General!” Keyser shouted, waving both hands, “No!” Behind him came E-egante, with Sarah, talking in low tones, and Fur Cap came too.
“HE HESITATED TO KILL THE WOMAN”
The General saw, and did not give the signal. The sight of the skirmishers hastened E-egante’s mind. He spoke in a loud voice, and at once his warriors began to emerge from the willows obediently. Crook’s bluff was succeeding. The Indians in waiting after nine were attempting a little bluff of their own; but the unprecedented visit of nine men appeared to them so dauntless that all notion of resistance left them. They were sure Gray Fox had a large army. And they came, and kept coming, and the place became full of them. The troopers had all they could do to form an escort and keep up the delusion, but by degrees order began, and the column was forming. Riding along the edge of the willows came E-egante, gay in his blankets, and saying, “How! how!” to Keyser, the only man at all near him. The pony ambled, and sidled, paused, trotted a little, and Keyser was beginning to wonder, when all at once a woman in a green shawl sprang from the thicket, leaped behind the chief, and the pony flashed by and away, round the curve. Keyser had lifted his carbine, but forbore; for he hesitated to kill the woman. Once more the two appeared, diminutive and scurrying, the green shawl bright against the hill-side they climbed. Sarah had been willing to take her chances of death with her hero, and now she vanished with him among his mountains, returning to her kind, and leaving her wedded white man and half-breeds forever.