by Max Brand
“Now tell me something,” said Jeremy, taking out a revolver and resting the barrel of it across his knee. “Before I sink a slug in you and then go to roast the meat that you hunted for us . . . when the bullet goes home and you get the bellyache, are you going to admit that Sweet Medicine is no god at all? Are you going to admit he’s just a plain damned owl that you happened to run into?”
Red Hawk frowned with profound consideration. “I do not think so,” he said. “Am I to understand the mind of a spirit? Perhaps he will let me die because I have allowed two white men to come into the Sacred Valley. That I cannot tell. Afterward, he will strike you.”
“Will he?” said Jeremy. “It kind of makes me mad, Joe, to hear the way the fool sticks to his story. It kind of makes me mad to think that’s the way he’ll be thinking when he passes out and turns cold. He won’t have any horrors. He’ll still feel that he’s in the hand of his god. It sort of takes the satisfaction out of lifting his hair, doesn’t it?”
“Yes . . . it does,” admitted Joe in a strained voice. “It does . . . sort of.”
He had been standing rigid behind his brother, his head straining back, his lower jaw thrust out, his eyes staring down under their lids. With the last words he spoke, the revolver in his hand lifted. Leaning, he fired straight down into Jeremy’s back.
Jeremy fell on his face and gripped the grass with both hands. Joe fired into him again. It seemed almost as though the impact of the bullet had caused Jeremy to rebound from the soil, for, as his body flopped clumsily over, Red Hawk saw the gleam of a gun in his hand, too.
Joe stood back, half crouched, his left hand spread stiffly against the air, his mouth pressed up. “Damn you!!” he yelled as he saw the gun, and fired again.
Red Hawk could see the impact of that shot, the shudder that it sent through Jeremy’s body, but there seemed to be no killing him. His own bullet he sent home with a much better aim, for he planted it fairly between Joe’s eyes so that the dead man fell across the dying.
“The dirty damned skunk! The dirty skunk!” gasped Jeremy.
He writhed his legs together, stretched them out, and lay still. . . . ‘
Chapter Thirty
Red Hawk got to the dead men. He could not reach his own knife with his hands, but he was able to pull out that of Joe. With it he sawed clumsily until he managed to sever the ropes and free himself. Then he sat in the darkening sunset and smoked a pipe to Sweet Medicine. What he felt was not gratitude, but pure and calm devotion.
Under the stars, under the moon Red Hawk cut the sod and deepened the grave until it would hold them both, for they must not be allowed to pollute the floor of the house of Sweet Medicine. Then he took their weapons, their wallets, all that was in their pockets, and put the stuff in a saddlebag. When he had finished that, he lay down and slept until the sun was up.
The valley was in perfect peace when he rose. There was no sign of what had happened except the flat, fresh earth of the grave and the torn-up turf where the bank of the creek had been trenched by the shovels of the brothers. These were small wounds, and the rains would touch all into shape again and heal the wounds.
He took the saddle horses and the string of mules on the lead of a rawhide lariat. They pulled out in an awkward line behind him as he rode down the valley until he was in front of the shining waterfall. There he dismounted and fell on his face in the grass before the bright face and the deep voice of his god. Afterward he continued slowly down the valley.
It was slow work to bring that train of mules across the hills; it was, in fact, well into the afternoon before he came to the Cheyenne outposts again. What a thing it was to sit his horse on the great hill that overlooked the camp and look down upon the teepees with the knowledge that he was no longer an outcast, but a hero and a maker of mighty medicine to all his tribe. It made affection rush out from him with a great flow. It made him smile, and at the same time there were tears in his eyes.
The scouts saw him as he rode down into the hollow circle of the plain. They did not need to be close in order to see that it was the master of White Horse who approached the camp. And how they came. Screeching like fiends and holding their lances above their heads so that the feather streamers stood out stiffly.
The small boys, who would always be skirmishing from dawn to dark on horseback, poured next, in a horde. They made a whirlpool of which the returning procession was the vortex.
They kept shouting his name; they kept coining new names. That was their way. When a man has done a great deed, his tribe will shower many epithets upon him and from them all he may take those that he chooses. Arrow Bringer they called him, and Mighty Owl, and Eyes in Darkness.
He listened to the uproar without smiling, although his heart was smiling, to be sure. Then he saw White Wolf among the rest. He was the brave who had charge of the outposts on this day, a warrior of note, young as he was. His eyes gleamed with pleasure when this great man, this friend of Sweet Medicine, lifted a hand and summoned him.
As he rode beside the white Cheyenne, White Wolf said: “Did you strike the white men? I see horses for two. Were there two? I see no scalps, and that is why I ask you.”
Red Hawk paused for a moment. He had not so much as thought of the thing before. For surely he might have counted coup upon the dead, and taken their scalps. But now he merely said: “It was not I, but Sweet Medicine who killed them. I did not have to lift my hand. Sweet Medicine struck them down by their own hands, when they were about to kill me. I was tied with ropes. I was helpless when Sweet Medicine struck them.”
White Wolf gaped. What is to be said of heroes and heroism, compared with the mystery that surrounds a wonder worker?
“Since it is the work of Sweet Medicine,” said Red Hawk, “the mules, the horses, and everything on them must be returned safely to the whites. I did not win the prizes. Keep them safely for me, White Wolf. Do not let any of the young men or the boys open the packs and steal from them.”
At this the warrior laughed a little. “Do you think that there are fools in the Cheyenne camp?” he asked. “Would not the young men sooner put their hands into fire than touch what is owned by Red Hawk? But it is time that you came back to the camp, because there is need of the strongest medicine that you can make. Spotted Antelope, your father, cannot eat food. He has a fever. Running Elk has done many things, but still your father’s face is hot and his hand is dry. Standing Bull and his squaw stay with Spotted Antelope, but now he is talking while his eyes are open and his brain is asleep. It is well that you have come.”
That was the news that brought Red Hawk sweeping into the camp. Before the Cheyennes had fairly heard the news of his coming, he was at the lodge of his father.
Bending Willow sat on one side of the old man, Blue Bird was on the other, and Standing Bull burned sweet grass and offered up prayers, patiently. All three gave a silent greeting to Red Hawk as he kneeled by the old man; the women withdrew to the farther side of the lodge.
Standing Bull murmured: “Running Elk has been here and has gone again, shaking his head. Quickly, brother. It will take a strong medicine to save him. He raves of you and Wind Walker, or Wind Walker and you. Quickly, Red Hawk, because already his breath seems to be rattling in his throat.”
But Red Hawk shook his head. The time was too patently upon Spotted Antelope. The long fasting had wasted away his face, and the gray dust of death was already upon it. His withered neck was hardly larger than a man’s wrist, and at the base of it the bones stood up in two big knobs. One could sorrow for the death of Spotted Antelope, but it seemed impious to wish life back into that worn skeleton. It was only wonderful that breath could still be in him.
But when Red Hawk spoke, the eyes of Spotted Antelope were without the red mist of fever. For that moment his brain was clear. From under his robe he put out a scrawny hand of ice and laid it, shuddering, in the grip of his foster son.
“So,” he said. “So . . . All will be well.” And he closed his eyes with such a
smile that Red Hawk thought the ancient brave had hopes of living. But in fact he was only gathering thought and strength for his next words, which he muttered as he opened his eyes again, saying: “My son, between you and Wind Walker let there be peace.”
“There can be no peace with him,” said Red Hawk.
“For twenty years,” said Spotted Antelope, “I have seen the thing happen, and my son in the hands of Wind Walker. It must not be.”
“Have no fear,” said Red Hawk. “Sweet Medicine is close to me. I cannot come to harm.”
“But if you injure him, you will come to harm,” gasped Spotted Antelope. “It is better for you to die than to kill him.”
“Kill him?” said Red Hawk, bewildered. “What dream have you had, father? But there is fever in you. You are very tired. Now close your eyes and sleep, while I sit here beside you and pray to Sweet Medicine. . . .”
“When I close my eyes, I shall be dead,” said Spotted Antelope. In his excitement, he thrust himself up on one elbow and grasped at Red Hawk’s deerskin jacket with his other hand. The immense effort made him waver. His head fell back on one shoulder, the eyes rolling horribly. He seemed in the very act of expiring as he gasped out: “If you kill him, your ghost will never find rest after death. Better for a brave to lose his shield and his medicine bag and his scalp than for you to kill him. Do you hear me? He is . . .”
The strength went out of him suddenly. Red Hawk was barely in time to catch the body that spilled inert into his arms. But there was a last tremor of the lips, and the breath of a dying man is sacred. Red Hawk put his ear close to hear the final word, but all that he could make out was a thin murmur that sounded in his ear like “Father . . . Father . . .” several times repeated.
There was no struggle. Spotted Antelope simply caught his breath, and then breathed no more.
East of the camp there was a hill on which stood a tree. The hill was like a buffalo lying down, and in the tree that stood on top of it, Red Hawk had the burial platform built.
He saw to everything. Bending Willow and Blue Bird did the work of wrapping the body, but he had laid out the articles that were to go with the corpse—things of such value that sometimes the dark eyes of the two women stole toward him with a question before they enclosed another treasure in the great bundle. For there were two pipes of the red pipestone, one of them so curiously carved that it was considered a tribal treasure. There was a fine bundle of arrows in a cougar-skin case, a new rifle, ammunition, a pair of fine axes, no less than half a dozen knives, a hatchet, the medicine bag, and Spotted Antelope’s shield and lance. A flute, a rattle, a buffalo mask, a necklace of the claws of a grizzly bear were added. Then, in five buffalo robes with a valuable painted robe next to the body, the corpse was wrapped. The body was taken outside and lashed on a travois that was pulled away by the best horse in the old man’s herd, a fine little steel-dust stallion.
The platform in the tree had already been built. It was hard to lift the clumsy bundle up to it, but finally the thing was done. Then Red Hawk saw that the saddle and bridle on the stallion were the best that could be found, and finally he ended the ceremony by shooting the horse through the head. It fell not on its side but in a heap, as though struggling to get up. That was very good luck, and it meant that the ghost of the dead man would be well served forever by the ghost of the horse.
Afterward, Red Hawk sat on the brow of the hill for two days and thought of the dead old man. Then he returned to the village.
Red Hawk went to the teepee of Lazy Wolf, but to his amazement that lodge had disappeared. When he inquired, he was told that the teepee had already been packed and was far off on the plain, winding along the trail. He got on White Horse and went in pursuit like streaking light.
As Red Hawk drew near, he saw the white man climb down from the wagon and come back down the trail. There he encountered Red Hawk, who threw himself down from the white stallion and grasped the hand of his old friend.
“What does it mean, Lazy Wolf?” he asked. “You go away without saying good bye.”
“I left you a letter in the hands of Standing Bull,” said Lazy Wolf. “It was better to go off without seeing you. It was a lot better.”
“Why was it better?” asked Red Hawk.
“Women,” said Lazy Wolf, “drove me away from my own people, and it’s a woman who drives me back to them again. I don’t know everything that’s in her mind, but I know that it is time to go.”
“She is driving on,” said Red Hawk. “And yet she knows you are on foot. This is strange.”
“She’s driving on, and that’s why I can’t stay here to spend a long time yarning with you, Red Hawk,” said the other. “I’ll have to hurry two miles, now, to catch up with her.”
“But what is the matter with her?” asked Red Hawk.
“There is a great pain in her heart,” said Lazy Wolf calmly.
“That is very bad. Can Running Elk do anything for her?”
“Only one man in the world can do anything for her. And she doesn’t want to see him. Good bye, Red Hawk. I’m trying to wish you more luck than you are likely to have when you run into Wind Walker. Pray to Sweet Medicine and shoot straight.”
“But wait!” cried Red Hawk as his friend turned. “Let me ride ahead and stop Blue Bird, so that she’ll wait for you. I must say good bye to her.”
“She has said good bye to you already,” answered the father. “And she won’t want to see you now. Don’t follow us, my lad.”
“But what am I to understand?” cried Red Hawk.
“A few years from now you’ll open your eyes . . . if you’re still wearing a scalp and walking the ground. Then you’ll understand all about it,” said Lazy Wolf, and he began to jog along after the disappearing wagon.
Chapter Thirty-One
Among the Cheyennes a man was judged by acts, not words.
That was why the tribe felt that the grief of Red Hawk for the death of his foster father was greater than anything that had ever been known before, because when he gave away the possessions in the lodge of Spotted Antelope, down to the skins of the lodge itself, what with the cases of knives, the little barrels of gunpowder, the rolls of bullet lead, the bullet molds, the guns, the beads, the hatchets, the axes, there was at least a small pouring of powder or a small handful of the best of bright beads for every man, woman, or child in the camp.
At night, he sat by and watched Dull Hatchet and Standing Bull in war paint lead the dance with every eye in the camp looking on. A war party against the Pawnees would start soon. As for Red Hawk, it was sufficient if he smoked and watched, for he had at last achieved his place in the tribe. For the first time in these many years, Red Hawk was content, for he had found his people and his people had found him.
White Wolf took the two dead Bailey brothers into the town of Witherell. He was equipped with a letter to Richard Lester in which Red Hawk had written, briefly, that the two white men had quarreled with one another and that they were both dead. All their goods were being sent back so that the white men could see that the hands of Red Hawk were clean.
The important thing for Red Hawk to decide, at this time, was whether or not he would accompany the war party that was to strike the Pawnees. He was not sure what he ought to do. There was a rumor that Wind Walker was even now among the Pawnees, and the great goal of Red Hawk’s actions must be, now, to come to grips with the famous white man. But he was by no means sure that Wind Walker was in fact among the Pawnees. Therefore he waited from day to day until he might receive a sign from Sweet Medicine.
So he came to the last evening before Dull Hatchet and the rest were to start on the trail—forty braves chosen from the best. The camp had fallen asleep peacefully. But a moment after Red Hawk had closed his eyes, there was a murmur and then a sudden outbreak of howling and barking from the dogs. Through this cut the sound of rifles. Red Hawk came out of his teepee with a loaded gun in his hand.
The moon was westering. It shone through a thin haze.
Rifles glinted here and there, but what Red Hawk noticed first of all was that White Horse was not in front of the lodge. He was gone—like a part of Red Hawk’s body—and yonder, in the press of the stampeding horses, there was the gleam of the great white crest that tossed like the foam of a wave above the rest of the tumult. A man sat on the back of the monster. That was what staggered Red Hawk so that he stood helplessly staring. It could not be that White Horse had submitted to the rule of any other hand than his own, and yet the convincing picture was there before his eyes.
A great cry was rising from the Cheyennes.
“Wind Walker! Wind Walker!” they were shouting.
That name made Red Hawk groan. What other men were unable to do, Wind Walker could easily accomplish, even to the mastering of White Horse.
Red Hawk borrowed the first pony at hand, without asking for the owner. He clipped a saddle over the back of the little horse and, rifle in hand, was carried out of the camp on the heels of a cloud of avengers that had blown from among the teepees.
He could not get full speed out of his mount. He was accustomed to White Horse, as to a great river of wind that carried a man easily over plains or mountains. And the little mustang that bobbed in its stride seemed to be moving no more swiftly than a rocking-horse. Yet something more than the horse was carrying him along. He hardly knew why there was such a feeling of fate upon him. He only knew that he never would turn back from this trail until he had White Horse between his knees again.
He heard the rapid thunder of the hoofs, speeding away with half the wealth of the Cheyenne camp. From voices that yelled in rage and hate, now and again, he knew that the raid had been made by Pawnees, headed by Wind Walker.
Red Hawk began to laugh, for it seemed plain to him now that fate was working again, and that the hand of Sweet Medicine was driving him on. Had not all of this been devised in order to include him, with or without his will, in the raid against Wind Walker?