Red Fire

by Max Brand

  “As much so,” replied the Cheyenne, “as if it were his master that listened. The tall brave with the scarred face, Walking Horse, said when he was near the big stallion that he thought White Thunder was a coward and not a good man. Not a week later Walking Horse’s son fell sick and would have died. But Walking Horse took the boy and went to the lodge of White Thunder. He confessed his fault and asked for pardon, and begged White Thunder not to take away the life of his boy. So White Thunder kept the boy in his own lodge and made big medicine, and in a few days the boy could run home. Then Walking Horse gave White Thunder many good robes, and ten fine horses from his herd.”

  “By this I see,” said Roger Lincoln, “that my good friend, White Thunder, is growing rich.”

  “He would be,” replied the young brave, “the richest man who ever walked or rode among the Cheyennes. But what is wealth to him? It runs through his fingers. He gives to the poor of the tribe. He mounts the poor warriors from his horse herd and lets them keep the horses. His lodge is open to the hungry. What is wealth to him? He can ask more from the Sky People if there should be need.”

  This speech he made with perfect simplicity and openness of manner, and Roger Lincoln, watching narrowly, nodded his head.

  “But still White Thunder is not happy?” he said.

  “It is true that often he looks toward the horizon,” was the answer.

  “Then let me speak the truth. Has this medicine man great power?”

  “That we all have seen.”

  “Has he struck down even the Dakotas with his wisdom?”

  “And they turn aside, now, from our war trails,” said the youth with a smile of savage triumph. “They are familiar with the medicine of White Thunder, and they do not wish to anger him again. They have not tried to strike us since the last battle. Even Spotted Antelope cannot find braves to follow him south against our lodges. They know that the birds of White Thunder would watch them coming.”

  “Do the birds work for White Thunder, then?”

  “Yes. Do you see that buzzard still hanging in the sky above us?”

  “Perhaps he is waiting until we go, so that he can drop down on the dead buffalo, yonder?”

  “Perhaps,” said the boy, but his smile showed that he was confident in his superior knowledge.

  “Farther,” he expanded suddenly, “than they can smell dead meat, the buzzards and all the other birds can hear the name of White Thunder, and they come to listen, and to talk to him.”

  “It is a great power,” Roger Lincoln said, keeping a grave face.

  “I myself,” said the youth, “have seen a sparrow fly out from the lodge entrance of White Thunder.”

  Roger Lincoln, after this crushing proof, remained respectfully silent for some time. “Now tell me,” he said finally, “if he has this great power, and if he is not happy among the Cheyennes, what keeps him from one day striking a great blow against the Cheyennes?”

  “We are his people,” said the boy uneasily. “He was sent to us. Standing Bull brought him.”

  “Did not White Thunder once ride away from you?”

  “That is true,” admitted the Cheyenne.

  “May not White Thunder be waiting patiently, hoping that because of the great services he has rendered to your people they will soon set him free, and let him go, with many horses to carry him and his possessions over the prairie?”

  The young warrior was silent, scowling at the thought.

  “And when he finds that the thing is not done, may he not lose his patience at last? May he not strike down the whole village with sickness, and while they die, he will ride away?”

  Rushing Wind opened his eyes very wide.

  And, striking while the iron was hot, Roger Lincoln continued: “Now I shall tell you why my rifle did not strike you today. A dream came to me. My friend, White Thunder, stood before me and said . . . ‘Every day I say to High Wolf and the other Cheyennes that I wish to be gone. They will not listen. Therefore, come and tell them for me. They may believe you. They are like children. They do not think that I shall strike them. Tell them. They may believe your tongue when they will not believe mine.’”

  He paused, and Rushing Wind sat tense with fear and excitement.

  “If I live to reach the village, I shall carry the word to High Wolf,” the young Cheyenne said.

  “That would be the act of a very young man,” said Roger Lincoln.

  “What should I do?”

  “If you tell the chiefs, they will sit and do a great deal of talking with the old men. Everybody will talk.”

  “That is true.” The young warrior nodded. “A great many words . . . many feasts . . . and nothing is done.”

  “At last they will not be able to give up White Thunder,” Lincoln said. “He is precious to them. A man does not like to sacrifice his best rifle.”

  “True,” said the Cheyenne again, wincing as he let his gaze rest upon his beloved weapon.

  “And White Thunder is like a rifle to the Cheyennes.”

  “Then what should I do?”

  “Be a brave and bold man, for your own sake, for your friendship to White Thunder, for the sake of your whole tribe . . . and for the sake, perhaps, of the life that I have given back to you this day.”

  Rushing Wind listened to this solemn prologue with grave, bright eyes.

  “The day will soon come when you will be a guard with White Thunder in your care.”

  “True,” said the youth.

  “Let him ride out with the girl. Let him ride straight north. I, night and day, shall be waiting and watching for his coming. I shall have fast horses with me. It will be your part to handle the guards so that the two have a chance to get a little start. You are a strong young brave. Perhaps you will be the chief of the guards on that day.”

  “Perhaps,” said the boy, stern and tense with excitement.

  “Your own horse could stumble in the hunt. The other two or three you could first have sent back a little distance for some purpose. You could fire your rifle, and the bullet could miss the mark. These things all are possible.”

  “Among the Cheyennes,” said Rushing Wind, “after that day I would be counted less than a dog in worth.”

  “You could leave the Cheyennes and come to us. We would make you richer than any chief.”

  “I would be known as a traitor. My tribe would scorn me.”

  “Time darkens the mind and the memory. After a little while you could come back. You would have fine horses and guns to give to the chiefs. You would have splendid knives, and horse loads of weapons and ammunition. You would make the whole tribe so happy with your return and the riches that you gave away that they would never raise a voice against you in the council.”

  Rushing Wind drew a great breath. His eyes were dim. The adventure was taking shape before them.

  “And if you were not condemned in the council, you would be able to meet the warriors who spoke to you with anger or with scorn.”

  The breast of the youngster heaved with pride and with courage.

  “But if you do not do this thing, no one will do it. I have been led by the dream to find you. The medicine of White Thunder is working already. It has brought me here. It fills your own heart, now. His bird is watching above us to listen to your answer. Tell me, Rushing Wind, will you deliver your people from danger, or will you not?”

  Rushing Wind leaped to his feet and threw his hands above his head. “I shall!” he cried.

  “Look,” said the other. “The bird has heard. He departs to carry the news to his master.”

  For the waiting buzzard, which rapidly had been circling lower, now, startled as the Indian sprang up, slid away through the air, rising higher, and aiming straight south and east.

  Young Rushing Wind stared after it with open mouth of wonder. “Great is the medicine of White Thunder,” he said. “I am in his hands.”

  IV

  When Rushing Wind returned to the Cheyenne camp, he wrapped himself in as much dign
ity as he could, because his expedition had not been successful. Not that this was a matter to bring any disgrace upon him. As a matter of fact, nine-tenths of the excursions—particularly the single-handed ones—never brought any results. But they were valuable and were always encouraged by the chief. No one was more valuable during the hardships of a long march than the young man who had learned to support himself for many days, weeks, or months, riding solitary on the plains. He who had made several of these inland voyages was looked up to almost as though he had taken a scalp or counted a coup. A chief gathering a party for the warpath was sure to try to include as many of these hardy adventurers as possible.

  As he crossed the river, he saw some boys swimming. They spied him at once and came for him like young greyhounds, whooping. Around him they circled, rattling questions, but when they gathered from his silence and the absence of any spoils that he had not done anything noteworthy, they left him at once, scampering back to the water. For the day was hot, the air windless. Only one careless voice called over a shoulder: “You have come back in good time, Rushing Wind. Your father is dying!”

  Rushing Wind twisted about in his saddle. Then he galloped furiously for the village, quite forgetting his dignity in his fear and his grief.

  He passed like a whirlwind through the village. Vaguely he noted what lay about him. Rising Hawk had a new and larger lodge than ever. Waiting River, in front of his teepee, was doing a war dance all by himself, looking very like a strutting turkey cock. In front of the home of Little Eagle seven horses were tied, and Little Eagle was looking them over with care. Ah, Little Eagle had a marriageable daughter, and no doubt this was the marriage price offered by her lover.

  Here, however, was his father’s lodge. He flung himself from his pony.

  Smoke issued in thin breaths from the entrance; he smelled the fragrance of the burning needles of ground pine, and knew that some doctor must be purifying the teepee.

  Softly he entered.

  There were no fewer than four doctors and their women at work in the lodge. They were walking back and forth or standing over the sick man, shaking the rattles of buffalo skin filled with stones to drive away the evil spirit that caused the sickness. As for Black Beaver, he lay stiffly on his bed, his face thin, cadaverous. His eyes were half opened. They looked to Rushing Wind like the eyes of a dead man.

  Along the walls of the tent he saw his mother and the other squaw, watching with strained eyes, already gathering in their hearts, apparently, the fury of the death wail and the horror of the death lament.

  Rushing Wind was a bold young brave, but he trembled with weakness and with disgust. Death seemed to him a foul, unclean thing. Such a death as this was most horrible. But a death in the open field, in battle—it was that for which a man was made.

  He passed quickly through the weaving mass of the doctors and their women and crouched beside the bed of his father. So dense were the fumes of the sweet grass and the other purifying smokes that he hardly could make out the features of the warrior. He had to wave that smoke aside.

  When his son spoke, Black Beaver merely rolled his eyes. His skin was dry and shining. It was hot as fire to the touch. Plainly he was out of his mind and very close indeed to death.

  Rushing Wind himself felt dizzy and weak. He thought that it was the evil spirit of sickness coming out of his father’s body and attacking him in turn. So he shrank back beside his mother. It was frightfully hot in the teepee. Naturally everything was closed to keep in the purifying smoke, and the fire blazed strongly. Outside, the strong sun was pouring down its full might upon the lodge.

  “How long?” he asked his mother in the sign language.

  “For three weeks,” she said in the same method of communication.

  “What has been done for him?”

  “Everything that the wise men could do. Look now. You would not think that an evil spirit could stay in the body of a warrior when so much purifying smoke is in the air.”

  “No. It is wonderful.” The boy sighed. “It must be a spirit of terrible strength. What was done at the first?”

  “All that should be done. Your father began to tremble with cold one night. Then he burned with fever. He was nauseated. The next day he began to take long sweat baths, and after each bath he would plunge into the river. This he did every day.”

  “That was good,” said the boy.

  “Of course it was good. But he seemed to get worse. We called in a doctor. Still he got worse. Two doctors came. Now we have given away almost everything. There are only two horses left of the entire herd.”

  In spite of himself, Rushing Wind groaned. However, he was no miser. He said at once: “Why have you not called for White Thunder?”

  “I would have called him. But your father and his other wife, here, would not have him. Your father does not like his white skin and his strange ways.”

  “Mother,” said the boy, “I will go for him now. Black Beaver is wandering in his mind. He would not know what was happening to him.”

  “It is no use,” said the squaw. “We have nothing to pay to White Thunder.”

  “But he often works for nothing.”

  “Your father is not a beggar, Rushing Wind,” she answered.

  “He will come for my sake. You will see that he will come gladly. He is my friend.”

  “There is no use,” repeated the squaw sadly. “I have seen men die before. Your father is rushing toward the spirits. He will leave us soon. Nothing can keep him back, now.”

  Rushing Wind, however, started up and left the tent. When he stood outside the flap of the entrance and had carefully closed it behind him, he was so dizzy that he had to pause a moment before the clearer air made his head easier. It was marvelous, he thought, that such clouds of purification should not have cured his father.

  He went at a run across the camp and came quickly to the lodge of White Thunder, noticeable from afar for its loftiness and for the snowy sheen of the skins of which it was composed. But when he stood close to the entrance, he heard voices and paused. He had seen a great deal of White Thunder, and the great medicine man always had been simple and kind to him. However, one never could tell. These men of mystery were apt to be changeable. Suppose that when he asked the help of the great doctor the latter demanded a price and then learned that only two horses remained to the sick man.

  With shame and pride, Rushing Wind flushed crimson. He knew not what to do, so he hesitated.

  “Here,” the complaining voice of Young Willow was saying, “the red beads should go in a line that turns here.”

  “I shall do it over again,” said the voice of Nancy Brett.

  The brave listened with some wonder. The white girl had learned to speak good Cheyenne with marvelous speed. But, for that matter, of course the medicine of White Thunder would account for much greater marvels than this.

  “Let the moccasins be,” said White Thunder, yawning.

  There was a cry of anger from Young Willow. “Do you want to teach your squaw to be lazy?” she asked.

  “She is not my squaw,” said White Thunder.

  “Ha!” said Young Willow. “The stubborn man will not see the truth. It pleases him to be wrong because he prefers to be different. Is she not living in your lodge? Does she not eat your food? Does she not wear the clothes that you give her?”

  “She is not my squaw,” White Thunder persisted carelessly. “She is a stolen woman. Who asked her father for her? Who paid horses to her father?”

  “What horses is she worth?” asked the squaw roughly.

  “Hush,” White Thunder said. “You are rude, Young Willow.”

  “I am not rude,” said the old woman. “I love her, too. But she is a baby. I speak with only one tongue. I cannot lie. How many horses is she worth? She cannot do beadwork except slowly and stupidly. She cannot flesh a hide . . . her wrists begin to ache. She cannot tan deerskins. She does not know how to make a lodge or even how to put it up. She cannot make arrows.”

 
; “She is a wonderful cook,” said White Thunder.

  There was a peal of cheerful laughter. It fell on the ear of Rushing Wind like the music of small bells. He knew that it was the white girl laughing, and he wondered at her good nature.

  “Bah!” said Young Willow. “What is a bow good for when it has only one string? Besides, marriage is more than a giving of horses. It is love, and you both love one another.”

  “Are you sure?” White Thunder asked.

  “Of course I am sure,” said the squaw. “You look at each other like two calves that have only one cow for a mother. I understand about such things. I am old, but I am a woman, too.” She cackled as she said it.

  “You are old,” said a heavy voice—and Rushing Wind recognized the accents of Standing Bull, that battle leader—“you are old, and you are a fool. Old age is often a troublesome guest.”

  “If I am troublesome,” grumbled Young Willow, “I shall go back to the lodge of my husband. I never have any thanks for the work that I do here.”

  “Do what you are bidden,” rumbled Standing Bull. “Keep peace. Speak when you are bidden to speak. A woman’s tongue grows too loose when she is old.”

  There was a cry of anger from Young Willow. “Why are you here to teach me?” she demanded of Standing Bull. “Go back to your own lodge. You have wives and you have children. Why do you always sit here? Why do you come here and look at this white girl like a horse looking at the edge of the sky?”

  “I shall go,” Standing Bull said with a grunt of anger.

  “Stay where you are,” said White Thunder. “When Young Willow is angry, her talk is like the throwing of knives. Don’t pay any attention to it. We never do.”

  “I am going to get some wood,” said Young Willow. “But today I have said something that a wise man would remember.”

  She came hurrying from the lodge, and behind her was the laughter of White Thunder. Rushing Wind prepared to enter.

  V

  He found on entering that White Thunder and the girl were still chuckling over the departure of Young Willow in a rage, while Standing Bull sat impassively in the place of honor in the lodge, propped luxuriously against a backrest, his gaze fixed upon vacancy.