by Max Brand
“I only brought fifty with me. You’ll get the rest when Rusty’s dead.”
“What kind of fools you maybe think we are? You pay now, or we don’t budge.”
“I wouldn’t cheat you boys. I’m not stupid enough to cheat you. I don’t want to go to sleep with a bullet through the head, someday.”
The three Laviers laughed, making snarling sounds high in their noses.
“All right,” said Dan. “Gimme the fifty, then.”
The major counted out five $10 gold pieces. He made them clink, one on the other. He talked a little more with them.
“I’d be scared of him, maybe, too,” said one of the Laviers. “But him not expecting us, we’ll kill him dead easy. So long.”
The major went back to the fort, and slept like a child until his orderly wakened him. The night was still black when he dressed. He put on warm clothes. In spite of the Laviers, he might have to do some fighting before the morning was over, and there is nothing like warmth to assure the steadiness of the hand.
His horse was ready for him, and so he rode out at once toward the mouth of Culver Creek, three miles to the northwest.
* * * * *
Big Bill Tenney had not dared to enter the town of Fort Marston. Instead, he had skirted around it, cautiously, so cautiously that, unseen, he was able to spot White Horse in the distance as it left the place, carrying Rusty toward his meeting in the valley. And Tenney followed on.
Now that he had so luckily discovered Rusty, he bided his time before coming up to his friend, and he got a sort of relish, a strange happiness, out of the thought that in a sense he was the disposer of the fate, the guardian of the life of the great medicine man of the Cheyennes.
What was in Tenney’s breast he could not recognize. For, plainly, he had nothing of a practical value to gain. The girl had begged him to come, and yet she would never reward him except with friendship. The rest of his pleasure would be in service.
But when he thought of this, he had to shake his great head, amazed. By nature, he was a taker, not a giver. If he followed another man, it ought to be for pay or for vengeance. Instead, he was keeping this trail, to whatever dangers it might lead, in the hope that Rusty Sabin might have added cause to speak a few words to him in that gentle voice—words of praise—words of happiness.
Bill Tenney’s mind was heavily involved in these thoughts as he kept after White Horse, but he had to drop farther and farther behind because, as the dawn light increased, it was more and more likely that his leader might turn and spot him.
He made out the place where White Horse paused, and then dipped over the edge of the cañon wall. When, in turn, he came to the same place, he found beneath him a pitch, down which he would never have dared to venture with the mustang he was riding. It was the finest horse in Lazy Wolf’s string, yet it could not be trusted down such a pitch. Even a mountain sheep might have grown dizzy here. Farther up the valley, there were other places easier in descent.
He was about to go to one of these when he saw that Rusty had dismounted, on the bottom of the valley, and was advancing on foot. And looking down toward the other end of Culver Cañon, he saw Major Marston in person, also on foot, with a horse left well behind him. Rifle in hand, he was marching toward Rusty Sabin.
The heart leaped in big Bill Tenney’s breast. In an instant, he was off his pony and drawing a sure bead on the major. Then something in his mind made him jerk up the muzzle of the gun.
They were about to fight a duel, those two bitter enemies. And the major, since he had lost his fame, his honor, his good name in every way, would now lose his life as well. But why should it be taken by a rifleman lying at a secure distance? Was it not better to trust all to Rusty, and to the machinations of the mighty spirit, Sweet Medicine?
That sense of awe that had troubled Bill Tenney more than once, recently, flowed through him again. He began to smile, as he looked down on the wide shoulders, the tapering body, the long, red hair of Rusty Sabin. Red Hawk had come like an Indian to what might be his final field. From his head flowed a great ceremonial dress of feathers. His body, naked to the waist, was so brilliantly painted that even at that distance it startled Tenney’s eye. Rusty was all Cheyenne, as he prepared for the fight.
At sixty or seventy paces, the major had halted. Red Hawk paused in turn. They stood for a moment with their rifles at the ready. And now for the stroke that would lay the major on the earth.
Bill Tenney looked up, half prepared to see some wide-winged owl, the bird of Sweet Medicine, floating above the valley. But he saw nothing. He only heard, while his glance was still in the upper air, the sudden clang of three rifles, fired almost in a volley. The sound did not come welling up from the bottom of the ravine. Instead, it hammered right across from the opposite lip of the cañon. Tenney saw the wisps of smoke rising, and three men clad in deerskins rising from behind the rocks that had sheltered them so securely. Was it murder?
Into the valley Tenney’s eye plunged, and saw there the medicine man—the hero—the glory and the ideal of his eye—lying prone on his face. The major was running forward.
Across the valley rang the shout of the three marksmen, and up from the floor of the cañon drifted the triumphant yell of the major.
He was the nearer, the more vital danger, and so Bill Tenney, rifle jerked to the shoulder, sent a slug straight for the body of Major Marston. The major side-stepped like a dancer, and flung himself down behind a rock. In fear of the plunging fire from above, he dared not look out and try to return the bullets. He had simply to hug the back of the big boulder that shielded him.
From across the valley, three rifle bullets sped at Bill Tenney and smashed upon the rocks about him. He crawled behind a split rock that would serve him like a breastwork with a loophole in it, and through that he fired at the first target that offered.
There was ice, not blood, in Bill Tenney’s brain now. The thing that he had seen, that most foul murder of Rusty Sabin, was like boyhood recollection of a tale told on a winter evening.
It was not Rusty who lay prone, down there—Rusty could not be killed. Sweet Medicine would turn those terrible bullets with the invisible flat of his hand.
Tenney looked down again, and indeed the prone body had stirred. It was still moving, lifting its head, and a thin signal whistle sped down the ravine. That whistle brought White Horse on the run. But it would also bring a fresh rain of bullets from the three murderers on the opposite height.
Bill Tenney, as he reloaded his rifle, caught sight of a head and shoulders rising from behind the shelter of the boulders near the rimrock, taking aim. Without time for care, he used a snap shot. He knew, as he pressed the trigger, that the bullet would strike home. In fact, the tall man in deerskins leaped up and dived into the thin air over the brow of the rock, jumping as if into water. His arms were extended stiffly above his head, his body twisted into a knot of pain. But halfway to the ground all that tension went suddenly out of him, and it was a loose, dead thing that Tenney saw strike the floor of the cañon. He saw, and he heard it. And he heard also the thin yells of the Laviers as they plastered more bullets on the rocks about him. Well, if they could be kept from firing on the wounded man down in the valley, he did not care how much they drilled away at him.
He saw White Horse kneeling down beside the master. He saw Rusty with small agonized efforts drag himself over the back of the stallion, wind his hands in the mane, and collapse. He saw White Horse rising, gently, head turned as though watching the weight that hung loosely on him. Then, at a smooth lope that was like the swaying of an easy wind, the great horse went down the valley. Had Rusty been saved for another chance at living?
No, for a yell of savage pleasure came from across the ravine, and Tenney saw that Rusty was slipping far to one side, inert, with life and power only in his hands to keep him on White Horse. Then a shoulder projecting from the main valley wall screened Rusty from sight, although it was plain that in another moment he would be falling.
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Chapter Thirty-Seven
On the floor of the valley, the major, risking gunfire, was darting back to catch his horse and resume the chase. Of the trio of murderers, the two who remained were vaguely glimpsed by Bill Tenney as they withdrew from their covert. No doubt they would be taking covert, also, and trying to come up to the quarry. And Bill Tenney’s place was down there in the thick of the thing—down there with Rusty Sabin.
He flung himself on the back of his mustang. The yell that came out of his throat was a Cheyenne cry. He hurled his pony along the verge of the cliff. A steeply slanting, dangerous slope appeared before him. He sent the horse down it. The poor little mustang cringed, but he spurred it savagely. He lifted it with his whip, a stroke that drew blood, and presently it was sidling, slipping, dodging, and swerving down the devil’s slide. Twenty feet from the bottom, the ground jumped out from under its feet, and horse and man toppled headlong onto the valley floor.
But the horse was a cat and the man was a tiger. Tenney was in the saddle again before the tough little bronco was on its feet, and he raced the horse up the ravine to the rescue.
Rescue? No, that was not the thought that was in his mind. One man, even one man like Tenney, could not deal with three expert fighters. He rode so furiously—well, he could not have told exactly why. It was not to save his brother. It was rather to see that Rusty Sabin did not die alone.
Just around the big, projecting rock at the side of the valley he found Rusty, toppled on the ground, his limbs twisted together. The great horse stood over his fallen master. He lifted his head. Surely it was a note of appeal that he sent thundering to Bill Tenney.
There seemed no life in Rusty. He lay half on his back, his eyes partially open. On his lips was a faint smile. That was the way the dead look, thought Tenney, and he dug his hands into the hair of his head and tugged.
God . . . I’m pullin’ my hair out like a woman, he thought to himself. He was blind. He was sick.
Then he saw that Rusty’s wounds were still bleeding. There were three of them—shoulder, side, and thigh. They were still bleeding freely, and dead men don’t bleed. The heart stops pumping, and there isn’t any flow.
Bill Tenney flung up one hand to the sky at that. If he had known enough Cheyenne, he would have made his prayer to Sweet Medicine to stop the gaping mouths of the wounds and prevent Rusty’s life from flowing away. But the Sky People, if they were worth anything, would be able to read even a white man’s mind.
Then he picked up the body. It was limp. The head and legs hung down. He had to shift the weight, and the shifting made the blood well suddenly from Rusty’s side. It flowed down over Bill Tenney’s body. He could feel the warmth of it.
“My God . . . my God,” said Tenney. “If only I could run some of my blood into you, brother.”
He saw how the rock was cloven away at the base, receding twenty feet or more, the outer lip fringed with boulders as with teeth. That was where he would find a refuge and tie up the wounds. He ran then, flexing his knees, and turning up his feet so that he would not stumble. White Horse was following, snuffing at his master, flattening his ears, and shaking his head threateningly at Bill Tenney. White Horse followed right into the cave beneath the cliff.
“A hell of a cave,” said Tenney. For the great mouth yawned open on all three sides, inviting invasion, and the hoof beats of the running horses down the valley drummed soft on the sand and loud on the rocks.
After putting Rusty down, his clothes became like paper in Tenney’s hands. He ripped them off and made them into bandages. He bound the bandages around the wounds, after he had clogged the mouths of the rifle holes with loose, dry dust.
Rusty, with his eyes slightly parted, lay on his back, moving only as Tenney moved him.
Then a gun boomed, and it seemed to fill the ears of Tenney with thunder. It drove a red rod of pain across Tenney’s back, all through the thick muscles of his shoulders. Glancing across the shoulder blades, the bullet had sliced its way, and the blood ran out.
“I’ve got him!” shouted Major Marston’s voice. “Now in . . . and finish ’em both. Now in at ’em. Come on, boys!”
They came. The major ran with a silent grin that showed his teeth. The two Laviers came screaming, almost as though they were shrieking in fear. But they were merely mad for the kill.
Tenney knew that. He had to move slowly. There was not much strength in his arms. The nerves seemed to have been cut. There was not much strength in his back, either.
He sat up and swayed to his knees. From the ready, he fired a slug into the breast of one of those screaming men who were charging, and the fellow spilled sidewise across the course of his brother so that he tripped him flat. Tenney smashed the butt of his rifle into the skull of that second man.
But then the major was at him. His rifle was empty because he had just sent its bullet into Tenney’s back. Now he gave the big fellow the barrel along the head, and whacked him back against the face of the rock.
It might have brained another man. It only knocked red sparks and jumping flames across Tenney’s eyes. And the blood ran down in one gush across his face.
“Now for you, Sabin!” he heard the major yell.
But Tenney grasped with his great arms at the legs that were striding past him, and the major stumbled and fell. Then terrible blows began to rain on Tenney’s head. They merely cleared his eyes, however, and he was able to see Rusty rising on one elbow—rising as if out of death, and smiling a little, still in pain, with a smile that was like death. He sat up, and in his hand there was the curving sheen of the great knife that he had forged with his own hands, long ago in the blacksmith shop. And the man prayed—even in the midst of battle, one swift lifting of hand and eyes to Sweet Medicine.
The major, kicking himself loose from Tenney at last, swung his rifle to brain Rusty Sabin.
“Now down . . . damn you!” screamed the major.
Rusty leaned forward on his left hand, and with the right, he thrust out the length of the knife into the body of Major Arthur Marston. The rifle came smashing down, but not on Rusty’s head. It hit the rock just behind him, and the stock snapped off.
The major staggered. He got hold of Rusty Sabin’s knife hand, and he seemed to pull the knife deeper into his mortally wounded body. Perhaps he was only steadying himself for the second stroke, to be delivered with the bare barrel of the heavy rifle. But as that stroke heaved up above his head, and, as Rusty raised a hand to ward off the blow, the major’s knees buckled both to one side. He came down on them with a lurch. He twisted himself over and tried to pull out the knife, but he merely succeeded in widening the wound horribly, slashing it to the side.
“God,” breathed the major. “A . . . a damned . . . a white . . . Indian. . . .”
The major was dying, and Tenney knew it. He dragged himself past the soldier with a rush, and got to Rusty. Rusty was struggling weakly to sit up, but all the strength suddenly went out of him and he slipped down on his side. And Tenney’s great hands were dangling loosely, helplessly. What could he do with them?
Once, he had been able to break the back of a man with those hands, but now he could not find a grip on the fleeing soul of his friend. He could only drop to his knees and peer into the white face. The hair above it seemed like a weltering flame. The blue eyes were not pinched with pain; they were wide open—clear and full of unspoken words.
Rusty made toward Bill Tenney a gesture of infinite gratitude and affection. He smiled in the face of the man who was known as a thief. But he gave him no words. Because, of course, there was no need of words between them.
“Maisry . . .” he said.
Bill Tenney slid a trembling, weak arm under Rusty’s shoulders and supported half the weight of that body. It was not a great weight. There had been a time when Tenney despised all except big men, huge-handed men like himself. But that was in the distant past, in that small, obscure portion of his existence before the days of his companionship with Rusty. Now h
e knew that there is a thing of mind and of spirit that is even greater than flesh. Here, with the strength of his hand, he was upholding a worker of miracles who still would have to submit to the last and greatest miracle of all, the coming of death.
“Aye . . . tell me about Maisry,” said Bill Tenney softly.
“Tell her that I died thirsty for her,” said Rusty. “I am thirsty for her. More than summer and long marches ever made me thirsty for water. And if. . . .”
His eyes closed. A slight shudder went through him, and Tenney, with a leaping agony in his heart, was sure that even as quietly as this, like a breath of wind through a door, like a gleam of light over a river, his friend had left him.
But with closed eyes, Rusty spoke again: “Where are you, brother?”
“Here . . . here,” said Tenney. “Rusty, don’t be wasting your breath on Maisry. No woman is worth it. No man, either. Think of your Sweet Medicine. Go on and say a prayer . . . to him that’s helped you so much. He can help you again.”
But Rusty would only say: “You know the blue of water at the end of a long march, when the horses are staggering and the men force themselves to grin, because of the pain in their throats? I feel that way about the blue of her eyes. Tell her that, brother.” His eyes were still closed.
“Rusty, will you hear me?” groaned Tenney. “Make a prayer now to Sweet Medicine.”
“There is no need to pray to him,” said Rusty. “He is near enough to see me. I hear a rushing sound in my ears, and what can that be except the wings of Sweet Medicine? But speak to Maisry. Words from a friend who is far away are better than food. Words from the dead must be better than honor given by a great tribe. Tell her that I have loved her . . . she has loved me . . . and the love of two people must go on living, even when they are both dead.”
“Those are hard things to remember,” said Tenney. “But I’ll never forget. The love of two people . . . you mean it goes on like a ghost that walks.”
“Aye. Like a kind ghost,” said Rusty. “Tell her. . . .”