Brand, Max - 1925

by Beyond the Outposts (v2. 1)

  I went into the shack and found Chuck, snoring - not at all like the prairie days when he was always the first to rouse me. I wrote a little note and put it on the table where he was sure to find it.

  Dear old Chuck:

  It seems that I can't be any use. I hoped that I could straighten out the tangle and save Zintcallasappa... save you, too, from doing what looked like a pretty bad thing. Well, now that I've seen you and seen the other girl, I feel that I haven't a right to so much as criticize. I'm going back to Standing Bear and Sitting Wolf and the rest to say good bye to them, as you've done. You've shown me one truth, that a white man has to live his life among white people. Yesterday I came in like a wild beast and showed my teeth when people rubbed me the wrong way. I've got to learn better! I'll make one more fling at finding my father out on the prairies ...but perhaps I've been a fool straight through. Probably he's nowhere near the prairies! Good bye, old man. The best luck in the world to you.

  I jogged out that little letter and went out to White Smoke. He began to talk the moment he heard my footstep, whinnying no louder than a whisper. I led the monster out - sixteen hands and three inches of shimmering beauty and wonderful strength. Have you seen a colt frolic around its dam? That was the way White Smoke frolicked around me. At last I had to speak sternly. He stopped before me as meek as a frightened child, and I saddled and bridled him. It was broad, warm morning by this time. Instead of breakfast I drew my belt a bit tighter, as one learned to do on the prairies, and left the fort at once. I went straight up the river bank for some distance, because it took me fairly straight in the home direction, and, besides, I wanted to enjoy the trees near the water. When one has lived years on the prairies, real trees mean more man food and drink.

  I went through them with my head bent back, watching the sun work through the leaves, listening to the stir of the wind, watching a squirrel working here and a blue jay watching there. The jay rose suddenly and hovered, scolding bitterly. The next moment I turned a corner of the trail and came straight upon Kearney and his daughter.

  She looked at me as though a snake had writhed across her path, and cried out: "Now, Dad, be careful... please!"

  "Damn care," said Kearney. "I have him alone, now."

  He rode straight up to me, drawing himself up straighter and straighter. He was much taller than I, but White Smoke's sixteen hands and three inches gave me a shade of an advantage over him.

  "Dorset," he said, "yesterday you insulted me grossly. A gentleman cannot put up with such a remark. I want your apology on the spot."

  He was one of those handsome men whose jowls grow a little too fat as years increase. The rest of his face turned very red; but his lower fat cheeks were white. I saw that; I saw that he was fingering the butt of a revolver of the latest make. I also saw the frightened face of the girl in the background.

  "Mister Kearney," I said, "I'm not a peace lover, but I'm trying to keep the peace now. Will you let me pass?"

  He took that remark in just the wrong way. I suppose there was a bit of the bully in him as there is apt to be in pompous men. He said with a sneer: "I presume that Chuck Morris has whipped you out of the town, if you dared to meet him. Now, sir, you will either fight or be whipped again."

  He leaned out as he spoke and flashed his riding whip across my face. The very end of the lash was knotted, and that knot flicked away the skin and allowed a trickle of crimson to run down. I still have the scar, like a tiny silver freckle on the skin. I look at it in the mirror and it makes my gray, wrinkled, lean face fade away and puts in its place the savage features and the wild black eyes of the Lew Dorset of those days.

  He had reached a bit too far. Before he could recover, I was at him. I caught the wrist that held the whip. I caught the other wrist as it snapped the revolver out of the holster. I felt my fingers crush through the flesh to the bone, while a spasm of pain twisted his mouth. Whip and gun fell to the earth, and the girl's cry came tingling in my ears in the nick of time.

  I saw what I was doing and released him instantly. "You have a daughter," I said. "That is the reason you are still alive."

  Then I pressed straight past them both, with the picture of Mary Kearney's terror gathered into my mind. I let White Smoke take his own way, which was the way of the wind. A little later we were out of the trees and on the open prairie, treading softly in the three-inch buffalo grass that grew as thick as hair on a dog's back.

  The red weal of the whip stroke faded before I reached the Sioux, and there was only the healing scar that flecked my temple when, ten days later, I came in view of the village. It was still a full mile away when a young brave, who was riding post, saw me and knew the flash of White Smoke. He came toward me with a shout, lifting his hand in token of friendship. By his side I rode into the camp, and he gave me the news as he went. They were gathering their forces for another attempt upon the Pawnees, for Bald Eagle, in a rage at the loss of White Smoke, had struck a recent blow that cost the lives of more than a hundred Sioux warriors. Standing Bear was to take the warpath and close with Bald Eagle if he could.

  I could not have heard more welcome news. Ever since the moment when Bald Eagle had seized on me as his prisoner, instead of freeing Sitting Wolf in exchange for Two Feather, I had wanted to get back at him. Besides, I was in a frame of mind that demanded action. I dreaded to be alone, for when I was alone a thousand ugly thoughts took hold on me - and the blue eyes of Mary Kearney looked into my mind. What lay before me I did not know. I only knew that I was afraid of myself - mortally afraid that I should be untrue to Chuck Morris.

  I went first to the teepee of Three Buck Elk and found Sitting Wolf with his father and mother. It was like stepping into the heart of my own family. Every soul in that teepee was mine, twice bought because I had saved the son of the family twice. Three Buck Elk seated me in his own place, gave me his own pipe, then left the place, and brought back Standing Bear, while Sitting Wolf and I were chattering. He was hugely excited about the proposed expedition. They planned to start in a day or two.

  When Standing Bear came in, the old fellow went to the point at once. All the preparations had been made. Eight hundred braves, he said, were ready to take the trail today - if I thought fit. I certainly was astonished when he said this.

  "Standing Bear," I said, "I am a young man, and a young man has hands, but no brains. I shall follow you where you and your brother lead me."

  "The Dakotas," he answered me, "have met Bald Eagle many times, and many times he has taken their scalps, made them weeping children, and sent them running like dogs before wolves across the prairies. Only one man has met Bald Eagle and come away from him alive, and with more than he took to him. That man is Black Bear. Standing Bear has ridden many times at the head of the warriors. His name was once a terror to the Pawnees. But now he is no more to them than an old toothless woman. You, Brother, shall lead us!"

  It was a compliment of such a size that I had to pause a moment before I digested it. But now that the actual power was put into my hands, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. Bald Eagle, in fact, had taught me.

  I said: "Then we shall not ride today or tomorrow."

  He nodded. "That is good. But why will my brother keep us here? The Pawnees laugh when they hear the name of the Sioux now."

  "Because the Sioux have become weak and foolish. Their eyes are no longer straight, and their hands tremble."

  His eyes flashed at that, and Sitting Wolf stirred in his place with a grunt.

  I said: "I will prove it. Call to me the twenty braves who are surest with a rifle in their hands."

  It was done. I took them with their guns out of the camp. I had a boy cut a calf from the herd of cows and send it scampering out on the plain, and then I told them to kill it. Every one of the twenty fired - and the calf still scampered away.

  "It is too far," frowned Standing Bear.

  "Look," I said, "when the Sioux hunt, they steal up on their game, or they ride around the stupid, slow buffalo
. They come so close that a child cannot miss. But the Pawnees do not stand like fools to be killed. They are farther away than the calf, and they run faster. The Sioux must learn to shoot like men before they can fight like men." I went on: "When the prairie burns in the dry autumn, how do we fight the fire?"

  "By starting other fires to burn against it," he said.

  "That is true," I said, "and Bald Eagle is a fire ...we must fight him in his own way. When he rides out with five hundred men, there is only one brain, and that is the brain of Bald Eagle. And his five hundred men are a thousand hands with which he strikes. But when we ride out, Standing Bear and Three Buck Elk are only two men among five hundred. You lead them until the Pawnees are near. Then each man rides and strikes for himself."

  It was too true for them to miss my meaning. Bald Eagle had beaten them into a state of humility in which they were ready to learn a few fundamentals of the art of war. In a word, they gave themselves into my hands. It was a beautiful opportunity. I have said before that Standing Bear was followed by what was really the cream of the Sioux nation. The exploits of Rising Sun and Black Bear had been enough to attract hundreds of sterling fighters. We could put at least eight hundred men in the field. And that was as many as Bald Eagle ordinarily led. He did not care to work with half-armed thousands. He fought with a handful, armed to the teeth, and well trained. I determined to follow his example on a larger scale.

  I confiscated every rifle in the town and made that possible by turning my own into the common store and having Three Buck Elk and Standing Bear follow my example. Altogether, we had eighty rifles and a fair stock of ammunition. With this I started the practice.

  In the meantime I sent Three Buck Elk to the fort in charge of a huge caravan to the fort with a letter to Chuck Morris. That caravan was loaded down with beaver pelts and with buffalo robes. I told Morris in the letter that I wanted, in exchange for it, a thousand rifles and as much ammunition as he could get his hands on. I knew that the value of that caravan could never be traded out for a thousand rifles, but I suggested to Morris that new guns were not essential. Any good-working weapons would do, and I suggested that he try for them at some Army depot, for the Army discards a gun the instant it shows a bit of wear. At least it was apt to do so in those days.

  While I waited for that caravan to return, I started to work on the tribe. At the time it was thought that the Indian was incapable of organization. At present there is a new idea. We have seen too many football teams turned out of Indian colleges and working like perfect machines, consummate in the art and unity of their work, and only kept from greatness by their lack of poundage. Well, the same essentials that make a football team make an army. The clue I followed was the instinctive reverence the Indians have for the heads of their families and clans. I formed the units in that way. Sometimes there were only five in a unit. Sometimes there were twenty. But each sergeant, if he could be called that, had over his men an absolute authority. Over the clans there were the natural clan heads. The smallest clan numbered fifty-two braves; the largest was two hundred and ten, which was much too large. However, I did not dare employ a regular decimal system. I worked on lines of blood throughout. Before we had been working long, more than a hundred braves from other tribes, hearing that some great thing was afoot, rode in to join us, and so we had for material, fully nine hundred and a few-odd available men, all physically strong, all brave. I divided them into two battalions. Three Buck Elk had one battalion; Standing Bear, of course, had the other.

  That was their organization. Then I started their training. The great temptation was to make them learn to drill in squads. But I knew them too well to attempt foolishly formal stuff with them. I kept the tools of war constantly in their hands. I wanted them to learn three things: to fight on foot - to obey blindly as they were commanded - and to shoot straight.

  The example of Bald Eagle's successes was enough to make them realize the value of instant obedience. They did not need to be told shooting straight was an essential. But it was frightfully hard to teach them the importance of fighting on foot when they had been born to the use of horses. I demonstrated in every way I could, but the most successful lesson was by proving that one man lying on the ground could hit a distant target sooner than three men shooting from the back of even a stationary horse.

  I formed the sergeants and the captains in small classes, and these I instructed in the most perfect care of a rifle. I offered a prize every day for the clan that showed rifles in the best condition. The prize system started a furious rivalry. I extended it to marksmanship. I instructed them in learning to practice, aiming empty guns, and I told them what Uncle Abner had told me, that a man should be shamed unless every spent bullet meant something dead. It was an idea they understood instantly.

  The caravan arrived. Straightway every man was equipped with a rifle that in the intervening month he had learned to take perfect care of. Now I felt that my army was on a true footing.

  My odd system of discipline was working out beautifully. Every clan leader could gather his men about him by a peculiar whistle or shout, and his followers learned to look to him for instructions. I kept constantly about me sixty-odd chosen braves. They served me as couriers to carry orders to the clans. They served me also as a select reserve that might deliver a telling blow in time of battle. Altogether, they were forming into an army that would have broken the heart of any army officer through its lack of uniforms, squad drill, or regular formations. But it was a little army that was shooting straighter every day, that trusted me blindly, and that was beginning to gain the greatest strength of all - a certain esprit de corps. They felt the power of their cohesion. I taught them it was as great a sin to charge without orders as it was to run away. Finally, I had a compact body of dragoons who were hungry to test themselves.

  Still I delayed. Marksmanship was what I wanted next to cohesion. And at marksmanship I labored valiantly. For two long months after the return of Three Buck Elk I kept putting them through their paces. It was dry autumn before I felt that they were ready for the warpath. By that time their hearts were breaking to be away, for Bald Eagle had conducted two sweeping, ruinous raids in the meantime. When all was ready, I went to say farewell to Zintcallasappa.

  SLAUGHTER

  I have said nothing about my first meeting with her after I returned from Chuck Morris because I have wanted to put off recording one of the most painful memories of my life. I went to her, of course, on the first day and found her washing at the river. She looked up at me with one wild flare of hope in her eyes, but she said at once: "If he had come, he would have been here with you, or before you. He will not come, my brother! Not even for you."

  Only a fool would have tried to comfort her. All I could do was make a point of seeing her every day. We used to have gay talks, for with a sort of iron strength she refused to allow her sorrow to be seen. She was always smiles when I was near her. Three Buck Elk wanted me to take her and her teepee and her son.

  "Because," he said naively, "they will keep in your mind the memory of your lost brother, Rising Sun."

  I wanted no squaw and told them so in such a way that the topic was never brought up again. In the meantime Zintcallasappa was changing rapidly. I was almost glad that Morris did not return with me, her face had grown so pinched and her eyes so great and staring. She was always beautiful to me, because to me the beauty of a woman is not so much flesh as spirit, like a lamp shining through their flesh. So it was with Zintcallasappa, but every day she grew thinner, more silent.

  When I said good bye to her, before I took the warpath with our little host, she reached up, put her hands on my shoulders, and looked into my face. "If you were the father of my son," she said, "would you be happy with him?"

  I was amazed and only stared back at her.

  "Ah," she continued, "perhaps one day you will be his father."

  I thought then, bitter fool that I was, that it was sort of a leading question. I thought that she had grown tired of
a single life and wanted to shift some of the burdens of existence onto the shoulders of a second husband. That thought I carried away with me like a shadow. But when I started out with our men, I forgot other troubles. I forgot Zintcallasappa and Morris and my father, and even the blue eyes of Mary Kearney shone dim and far away.

  There were nine hundred and forty-six braves, all told. Each carried a rifle in excellent condition, and each man could use his gun at least as well as the average white infantryman. Each had a strong wide-bladed hatchet slung on the saddle, also some dried buffalo meat, and some parched corn. We traveled with over a thousand horses herded behind us by some of the older of the Indian boys, with Sitting Wolf in charge of the entire party. In this fashion we pressed ahead. I kept a party of thirty men on fast horses in the van a whole day's march. I had out three other parties, two far away on the flanks, and another body well to the rear. So, with four feelers far extended to take the first news of danger, we crawled across the prairies.

  Standing Bear was much concerned because I had mounted the men on the worst horses and left the best to be herded behind us, but I kept my reasons for mat maneuver to myself. A little mystery never does any harm when one is handling Indians. Though I was not quite twenty-two, I had learned to know the Indians as well as most men.

  We crossed a vast stretch of the plains in a three weeks' march before word came in that a party of two hundred Pawnees was paralleling our advance on the right, keeping a good distance away. Standing Bear was for rushing at them at once, but I was in a quandary. I wanted to flesh my pack, so to speak, before the real shock of battle against Bald Eagle, but I did not know how to get at the Pawnees. They were out there as a strong observation party, feeding information about our movements to Bald Eagle who, somewhere on the bosom of the prairie, waited with his organized force to fall upon us. How to come near them, either by night or day, I could not tell. It is impossible for a considerable body of horsemen to move in any silence. There is always a certain amount of snorting and squealing from the horses, especially from wild Indian ponies, and one snort would be enough to alarm the Pawnee scouts.