The Watchers of the Plains

by Cullum, Ridgwell

  “Of course it will. Do you suppose I don’t know?” The man spoke with harsh irritation. “You—you don’t seem to understand.”

  “Wanaha understands.” The squaw nodded. Then she, too, gave way to a slight irritation. “Why you not sleep, my Nevil? Wanaha watch. It a long journey. Sleep, my husband. You fear foolish. So.”

  The man turned scornful eyes in her direction, and for a moment did not speak. Then presently he said—

  “Sometimes I think it’s unnecessary for us to go. I can’t make up my mind. I never had such difficulty in seeing clearly before. Your brother was so quiet and calm. He spoke so generously. I told him the whole story. How I was forced by that damned Seth to go into the fort. And how I was forced to fight. Pshaw! what’s the use of talking? I’ve told you all this already. Yet he listened to all I had to say, and as I made each point he nodded in that quiet, assured way of his—you know. I think he understood and was satisfied. I think so—and yet—it’s no use, I can’t be sure. I wish he’d lost his temper in his usual headstrong way. I understand him when he is like that. But he didn’t. He was very calm.

  “Do you know, my Wana, it seemed to me that he’d heard my story before, told by some one else, probably told with variations to suit themselves. It seemed to me that—well, he was only listening to me because he had to. I swear I’d give ten years of my life to know what he really thinks. Yes, I think I’m right. Once away from here we are safe. Neither he nor any of the braves can follow us. The soldiers will see that none leave the Reservations. Yes, I’m sure it’s best to get away. It can do no harm, and it’s best to be sure. Still an hour and three-quarters,” he finished up, again referring to his watch.

  “Yes, it best so,” the woman said in reply. She understood the condition of her husband’s mind. She saw clearly that she must humor him.

  Whatever her innermost thoughts may have been she made her replies subservient to his humor. She had listened closely to his account of his interview with her brother, and there is little doubt that she had formed her own opinion, and, being of the blood of the chief, she probably understood him better than this white man did. But whatever she really thought no word of it escaped her.

  Another silence fell. Again it was the man who broke it.

  “That Jim Crow is very active. He comes and goes all day. He interviews Little Black Fox whenever he pleases. He’s a two-faced rascal. Do you know, it was he who brought the news of relief to the farm. And what’s more, he came in with the soldiers. I always seem to see him about. Once I thought he was watching my movements. I wonder why?”

  The man drooped dejectedly as he tried to unravel this fresh tangle. Why was Jim Crow shadowing him? In the interests of the Indians? Again he pulled out his watch. And the woman beside him saw that his hand was shaking as he held it out to the light of the stove.

  It was time to hitch up his horses, he said. Yet they were not starting until dawn, and it still wanted a full hour to the time.

  Wanaha sat up, and Nevil moved about amongst the litter of their belongings. There was coffee on the stove and food on the table. He helped himself to both, bolting meat and drink in a nervous, hasty manner. Wanaha joined him. She ate sparingly, and then began to gather their goods together.

  Nevil turned to her. He was preparing to fetch the horses which were picketed out on the prairie. He was in better mood now. Action restored in him a certain amount of confidence.

  “It will be good to get away, my Wana,” he said, for a moment laying one hand upon her shoulder.

  The woman looked up into his mean face with a world of love in her profound eyes.

  “It good to be with you—anywhere, my Nevil,” she said, in her quiet way.

  The man turned to the door.

  He raised the latch and threw it open. He stood speechless. A panic was upon him; he could not move, he could not think. Little Black Fox was standing in the doorway, and, behind him, two of his war-councilors leaning on their long, old-fashioned rifles.

  Without a word, the chief, followed by his two attendants, stepped within. The door was closed again. Then Little Black Fox signed to Wanaha for a light. The squaw took the oil-lamp from a shelf and lit it, and the dull, yellow rays revealed the disorder of the place.

  The chief gazed about him. His handsome face was unmoved. Finally he looked into the face of the terror-stricken renegade. Nevil was tall, but he was dwarfed by the magnificent carriage and superb figure of the savage.

  It was the chief who was the first to speak. The flowing tongue of the Sioux sounded melodious in the rich tones of the speaker’s voice. He spoke without a touch of the fiery eloquence which had been his when he was yet the untried leader of his race. The man seemed to have suddenly matured. He was no longer the headstrong boy that had conceived an overwhelming passion for a white girl, but a warrior of his race, a warrior and a leader.

  “My brother would go from his friends? So?” he said in feigned surprise. “And my sister, Wanaha?”

  “Wanaha obeys her lord. Whither he goes she goes. It is good.”

  The squaw was alive to the position, but, unlike her white husband, she rose to the occasion. The haughty manner of the chief was no more haughty than hers. She was blood of this man, and no less royal than he. Her deep eyes were alert and shining now. The savage was dominant in her again. She was, indeed, a princess of her race.

  “And whither would they go, this white brother and his squaw?” There was a slight irony in the Indian’s voice.

  Again the squaw answered.

  “We go where white men and Indians live in peace.”

  “No white man or Indian lives in peace where he goes.”

  Little Black Fox pointed scornfully at the cowering white man. The squaw had no answer ready. But the renegade himself found his tongue and answered.

  “We go until the white man’s anger is passed,” he said. “Then we return to the great chief’s camp.”

  For a while the young chieftain’s eyes seemed to burn into those of the man before him, so intense was the angry fire of his gaze.

  “You go,” he said at last, “because you fear to stay. It is not the white man you fear, but the Indian you have betrayed. Your tongue lies, your heart lies. You are neither brave nor squaw-man. Your heart is the heart of a snake that is filled with venom. Your brain is like the mire of the muskeg which sucks, sucks its victims down to destruction. Your blood is like the water of a mosquito swamp, poisonous even to the air. I have eyes; I have ears. I learn all these things, and I say nothing. The hunter uses a poisoned weapon. It matters not so that he brings down his quarry. But his weapon is for his quarry, and not for himself. He destroys it when there is danger that he shall get hurt by it. You are a poisoned weapon, and you have sought to hurt me. So.”

  Wanaha suddenly stepped forward. Her great eyes blazed up into her brother’s.

  “The great chief wrongs my man. All he has done he was forced to do. His has been the heart to help you. His has been the hand to help you. His has been the brain to plan for you. So. The others come. They take him prisoner. He must fight for them or die.”

  “Then if he fights he is traitor. So he must die.”

  Nevil had no word for himself. He was beyond words. Even in his extremity he remembered what Seth had said to him. And he knew now that Seth’s knowledge of the Indians was greater, far deeper, than his. This was his “dog’s chance,” but he had not even the privilege of a run.

  The irony of his lot did not strike him. Crimes which he had been guilty of had nothing to do with his present position. Instead, he stood arraigned for a treachery which had not been his, toward the one man to whom he had ever been faithful.

  But while his craven heart wilted before his savage judge; while his mind was racked with tortures of suspense, and his scheming brain had lost its power of concentration; while his limbs shook at the presentiment of his doom, his woman stood fearless at his side, ready to serve him to the bitter end, ready to sacrifice herself if need
be that his wretched life might be saved.

  Now she replied to her brother’s charge, with her beautiful head erect and her bosom heaving.

  “No man is coward who serves you as he has served you,” she cried, her eyes confronting her brother’s with all the fearless pride of her race. “The coward is the other. The one who turns upon his friend and helper when misfortune drives.”

  The words stung as they were meant to sting. And something of the old headstrong passion leapt into the young chief’s heart. He pointed at his sister.

  “Enough!” he cried; and a movement of the head conveyed a command to his attendants. They stepped forward. But Wanaha was quicker. She met them, and, with upraised hand, waved them back in a manner so imperious that they paused.

  “Little Black Fox forgets!” she cried, addressing herself to her brother, and ignoring the war-councilors. “No brave may lay hand upon the daughter of my father. Little Black Fox is chief. My blood is his blood. By the laws of our race his is the hand that must strike. The daughter of Big Wolf awaits. Let my brother strike.”

  As she finished speaking Wanaha bowed her head in token of submission. But for all his rage the chief was no slayer of his womenfolk. The ready-witted woman understood the lofty Indian spirit of her brother. She saw her advantage and meant to hold it. She did not know what she hoped. She did not pause to think. She had a woman’s desire to gain time only. And as she saw her brother draw back she felt that, for the moment at least, she was mistress of the situation.

  “So,” she went on, raising her head again and proudly confronting the angry-eyed youth, “my brother, even in his wrath, remembers the law of our race. Let him think further, and he will also remember other things. Let him say to himself, ‘I may not slay this man while my sister, Wanaha, lives. She alone has power to strike. The council of chiefs may condemn, but she must be the executioner.’ So! And my brother will be in the right, for Wanaha is the blood of Big Wolf, and the white man is her husband.”

  The headstrong chief was baffled. He knew that the woman was right. The laws of the Sioux race were as she had said. And they were so stringent that it would be dangerous to set them aside, even though this man’s death had been decided upon by the unanimous vote of the council. He stood irresolute, and Wanaha added triumph to her tone as she went on.

  “So, great chief, this man’s life is mine. And I, Wanaha, your sister, refuse to take it. For me he is free.”

  But Wanaha in her womanish enthusiasm had overshot her mark. The laws were strong, but this wild savage’s nature was as untamed and fearless as any beast of the field. It was her tone of triumph that undid her.

  Little Black Fox suddenly whipped out a long hunting-knife from his belt and flung it upon the table with a great clatter. It lay there, its vicious, gleaming blade shining dully in the yellow lamplight.

  “See!” he cried, his voice thick with fury. “Have your rights! I go. With the first streak of dawn I come again. Then I slay! Wanaha shall die by my hand, and then she has no right to the life of the white man!”

  * * *

  The first streak of dawn lit the eastern sky. The horses were grazing, tethered to their picket ropes within view of the log hut down by the river. The wagon stood in its place at the side of the building. There was no firelight to be seen within the building, no lamplight.

  The circle of silent squatting figures still held their vigil.

  As the daylight grew three figures emerged from the woods and moved silently to the door of the hut. They paused, listening, but no sound came from within. One, much taller than his companions, reached out and raised the latch. The door swung open. He paused again. Then he stepped across the threshold.

  The new-born day cast a gray twilight over the interior. The man sniffed, like a beast of prey scenting the trail of blood. And that which came to his nostrils seemed to satisfy him, for he passed within and strode to the bedside. He stood for a few moments gazing down at the figures of a man and a woman locked in each other’s arms.

  He looked long and earnestly upon the calm features of the faces so closely pressed together. There was no pity, no remorse in his heart, for life and death were matters which touched him not at all. War was as the breath of his nostrils.

  Presently he moved away. There was nothing to keep him there. These two had passed together to the shores of the Happy Hunting Ground. They had lived and died together. They would—perhaps—awake together. But not on the prairies of the West.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  THE CAPITULATION

  “I’d like to know how it’s all going to end.”

  Mrs. Rickards drew a deep sigh of perplexity and looked helplessly over at Ma, who was placidly knitting at her husband’s bedside. The farmwife’s bright face had lost nothing of its comeliness in spite of the anxieties through which she had so recently passed. Her twinkling eyes shone cheerily through her glasses, and the ruddy freshness of her complexion was still fair to see. A line or two, perhaps, had deepened about her mouth, and the grayness of her hair may have become a shade whiter. But these things were hardly noticeable.

  The change in Rosebud’s aunt was far more pronounced. She had taken to herself something of the atmosphere of the plains-folk in the few weeks of her stay at the farm. And the subtle change had improved her.

  Rube was mending fast, and the two older women now spent all their spare time in his company.

  Ma looked up from her work.

  “Rube an’ me have been discussin’ it,” she said. “Guess we’ve settled to leave the farm, an’ buy a new place around some big city. I don’t rightly know how the boy ’ll take it. Y’ see, Seth’s mighty hard to change, an’ he’s kind o’ fixed on this place. Y’ see, he’s young, an’ Rube an’ me’s had a longish spell. We’d be pleased to take it easy now. Eh, old man?”

  Ma glanced affectionately at the mighty figure filling up the bed. The man nodded.

  “Y’ see, things don’t seem hard till you see your old man’s blood runnin’,” she went on. “Then—well, I guess I ain’t no more stummick fer fight. I’d be thankful to God A’mighty to end my days peaceful.”

  Mrs. Rickards nodded sympathetically.

  “You’re quite wise,” she said. “It seems to me you’ve earned a rest. The courage and devotion of all you dear people out here have been a wonderful education to me. Do you know, Mrs. Sampson, I never knew what life really meant until I came amongst you all. The hope, and love, and sympathy on this prairie are something to marvel at. I can understand a young girl’s desire to return to it after once having tasted it. Even for me it has its fascinations. The claims of civilization fall from one out here in a manner that makes me wonder. I don’t know yet but that I shall remain for a while and see more of it.”

  Ma smiled and shook her head at the other’s enthusiasm.

  “There’s a heap worth living for out here, I guess. But——”

  “Yes. I know what you would say. A time comes when you want rest for mind and body. I wonder,” Mrs. Rickards went on thoughtfully, “if Seth ever wants rest and peace? I don’t think it. What a man!”

  She relapsed into silent admiration of the man of whom she was speaking. Ma noted her look. She understood the different place Seth now occupied in this woman’s thoughts.

  “But I was not thinking about the affairs of this farm and the Indians so much as something else,” Mrs. Rickards went on presently, smiling from Ma to Rube and back again at Ma.

  The farmwife laid her knitting aside. She understood the other’s meaning, and this was the first mention of it between them. Even Rube had turned his head and his deep-set eyes were upon the “fine lady.”

  “Yes, I was thinking of Seth and Rosebud,” she went on earnestly. “You know that Rosebud——”

  Ma nodded.

  “Seth’s ter’ble slow,” she said slyly.

  “Do you think he’s——”

  “Sure.” The two women looked straight into each other’s ey
es, which smiled as only old women’s eyes can smile when they are speaking of that which is the greatest matter of their lives.

  “I know how she regards him,” Mrs. Rickards went on. “And I tell you frankly, Mrs. Sampson, I was cordially opposed to it—when I came here. Even now I am not altogether sure it’s right by the girl’s dead father—but——”

  “But——?” Ma’s face was serious while she waited for the other to go on.

  “But—but—well, if I was a girl, and could get such a man as Seth for a husband, I should be the proudest woman in the land.”

  “An’ you’d be honored,” put in Rube, speaking for the first time.

  Mrs. Rickards laughingly nodded.

  Ma sighed.

  “Guess Seth has queer notions. Mighty queer. I ’low, knowin’ him as I do, I could say right here that that boy ’ud ask her right off, only fer her friends an’ her dollars. He’s a foolhead, some.”

  Mrs. Rickards laughed again.

  “In England these things are usually an inducement,” she said significantly.

  “Seth’s a man,” said Ma with some pride. “Seth’s real honest, an’—an’, far be it for me to say it, he’s consequent a foolhead. What’s dollars when folks love? Pshaw! me an’ Rube didn’t think o’ no dollars.”

  “Guess we hadn’t no dollars to think of, Ma,” murmured Rube in a ponderous aside.

  “Wal? An’ if we had?” Ma smiled defiantly at her “old man.”

  “Wal, mebbe we’d ’a’ tho’t of ’em.”

  The farmwife turned away in pretended disgust.

  “And you don’t think anything will come of it?” suggested Mrs. Rickards, taking the opportunity of returning to the matter under discussion.

  Ma’s eyes twinkled.

  “Ther’ ain’t no sayin’,” she said. “Mebbe it’s best left to Rosie.” She glanced again at her sick husband. “Y’ see, men mostly has notions, an’ some are ter’ble slow. But they’re all li’ble to act jest so, ef the woman’s the right sort. Guess it ain’t no use in old folks figgerin’ out fer young folks. The only figgerin’ that counts is what they do fer themselves.”