The Sacred Valley

by Max Brand

  The legitimate practice consisted of much dancing and smoking, much howling to the spirits, much fasting, leaping, running to the point of exhaustion, and finally a fat fee to the medicine man; sweat baths were the order of the day in every illness, and, although the sweat baths very often killed the patient, sometimes the sick man survived.

  So Running Elk, when he heard that Red Hawk was returning with so many horses loaded with treasure—and with the sick war chief in hand—leaned his cruel old chin on his fist and began to think. And the more he thought, the more he smiled, so that his squaws looked at him with shudderings, for they knew what his smiling portended—trouble, great trouble.

  The procession came into the camp in silence—a tribute to the illness of the war chief. But it was a silent joy when the braves had a glimpse of the treasures that were being transported in the packs. Only Running Elk remained apart, and smiled his smile, wrapped to the eyes in a painted buffalo robe worth the price of half a dozen good war ponies.

  He went to visit the sick chief, when Standing Bull was laid in his teepee, smiling weakly with happiness to be home again. And, leaning over him, Running Elk stared intently into the dull eyes of the wounded man. He knew something about the eyes with which death first looks out of the face of man; he knew that the chief was not half a step removed from the end. And a thrill of hope ran through the body of Running Elk. Hitherto, Red Hawk had worked wonderful cures. Yet he had been these days with Standing Bull, his own brother by blood ceremony, and had failed to heal him. Did it mean that Sweet Medicine at last had turned his favor from the white Indian? Was it not clear that a touch would kill the war chief now?

  Running Elk went back to his teepee and pondered his thoughts again until a turmoil began in the round central clearing of the camp, just before his lodge. He went out and found the tribesmen gathering to receive the distribution of the gifts. Running Elk stepped into the center of affairs at once.

  He got on a horse and made a speech that was brief and burning. He said: “Brothers, I have prayed. I have received wisdom. This is what the Sky People say to me. They say . . . ‘Running Elk, go among the warriors. Tell them that they make themselves happy at the thought of riches, but they forget that their war chief is almost dead. He is almost dead because we are not pleased with them. He is about to die because all the Sky People are angry with the Cheyennes. So let us see what the people are willing to sacrifice to us. And if they sacrifice enough, we will let Standing Bull be cured.’ This is the way the spirits talked to me. And I tell you, my friends, that it would be wise to take half the packs of the horses that were brought to us from the white men, and burn the treasure. Let us see if that is sacrifice enough, and let us not touch the rest of the treasure until we are sure that the Sky People are happy and pleased with us again. We shall know, surely, by the sickness or the health of Standing Bull.”

  A gloomy groan answered Running Elk. But it was a groan of assent.

  A prairie Indian did not lie to his fellow tribesmen. To an enemy, to a white man, a lie was far better than the truth. Many a lie told in the camp of an enemy was as famous in Cheyenne tradition as great deeds in open battle. But among friends, the truth had to be told. That was why Running Elk was believed. He said that the Sky People had talked to him, and therefore the Sky People must have talked. They demanded a sacrifice, and therefore a sacrifice must be made.

  The logic was simple. A war chief should mean more than treasure. If the sacrifice of treasure would make him well, then of course the sacrifice should be made.

  It never occurred to a single man in the tribe that Running Elk was a malicious old liar. The only one who saw through the thing was Lazy Wolf, the white man, but he was an outlander who never interfered in tribal affairs.

  For too many years he had watched the odd workings of the Cheyenne mind and he now stood by with a queer smile and watched the boxes of rifles broken open and heaped in a stack, and the good powder poured over them, and the axes and the hatchets, the excellent knives, the cloth, the bright beads, and everything up to one half of the heavy horse loads that had been carried all the way from Witherell across the hot prairie.

  And then the fire was set. The powder burned up with a tremendous flare. But it did not explode. It had been mixed with enough earth to prevent that. The heat of the fire was tremendous, because a good core of firewood had been provided. And so $10,000’s worth of trade goods went up in one tremendous flare.

  The braves watched with impassive faces, but there was murder in their hearts.

  Afterward, still gloomy, they listened to the medicine man as he said: “The sacrifice has been made. In the morning we shall see if the Sky People have been pleased.”

  Then he went back into his lodge and told his wives to permit no noise within the lodge, for he would be communing with the Sky People from that time forward. He raised a mighty stench burning magic herbs and sat contentedly in the middle of the smoke. For his heart was happy and hopeful.

  And the next morning, Lazy Wolf strolled into the lodge of Standing Bull and saw Red Hawk seated cross-legged beside the sick man. Blue Bird kneeled behind Red Hawk, murmuring at his ear: “You are very tired. You are so tired that your eyes have turned into the eyes of an old man. Lie down and sleep. I will watch beside Standing Bull. His wives will watch, also. If you don’t sleep, Red Hawk, you will grow sick and die. If you kill yourself, will that make your brother well?”

  Red Hawk put out his hand and laid it on the arm of Standing Bull. The chief was sleeping, muttering in his sleep. But at the touch of his friend he grew quiet at once.

  The two wives of Standing Bull laid their fingers on their lips and looked at each other in wonder. They had watched the touch of Red Hawk work this marvel before, but they never ceased to delight in the strangeness of it.

  The pulse that Red Hawk was feeling was very irregular, very weak. It never had stopped that horrible fluttering that promised every moment to end, and with it would end the life of the chief. Standing Bull was much altered. The fullness of his lips had diminished. There was a blue shadow in his temples. His eyes were sunken, although no more than the eyes of the man who watched beside him. The flesh was falling away from his cheeks. His breathing rattled through partly opened lips.

  Red Hawk, making no answer to the girl, looked with indescribable anxiety on the sick man. More than once he had tried to lie down and sleep, compelled by the agony of exhaustion, but always he was prevented by the horrible thought that now, perhaps, in that moment when he was off guard in slumber, death would steal the spirit of the chief.

  Lazy Wolf murmured: “While you’re sitting here, do you know that Running Elk has persuaded the fools to burn half the treasure you brought out to them?”

  Rusty, without a word, rolled back his head and looked up with the red-stained eyes of sleeplessness at the face of the trader.

  “That was yesterday,” said Lazy Wolf. “And this morning, when they heard that Standing Bull was no better, they’ve decided to burn the other half of the things you gave them. Running Elk eggs them on . . . there . . . you can hear the spitting and rushing of the fire. There goes the rest of the treasure, Rusty.”

  Rusty closed his eyes and took a breath. He had thought that the greatness of his gifts might be a thing for these red people of his to remember. But that hope was gone.

  He shrugged his shoulders and looked at the death-like face of Standing Bull again.

  “Well,” said Lazy Wolf, “the fools won’t help Standing Bull with all their sacrifices. But why don’t you get some sleep? Here . . . let me look at you. You’re more than half sick yourself. Is it true that you haven’t closed your eyes since you left Witherell?”

  Rusty looked away from the questioner. He had forgotten that the trader was there. And Blue Bird, rising, took her father by the arm with both frightened, anxious hands.

  “You have a wise brain. You must do something. Standing Bull may live, but Red Hawk will die if he continues like this. His eyes a
re terrible. Have you seen them?”

  Red Hawk muttered, just audibly, turning up the palms of his hands in prayer: “Be merciful, Sweet Medicine. His blood is my blood . . . my blood is his blood. His life is my life . . . my life is his life.”

  Blue Bird began to weep silently. And her father tried to take her from the lodge, but she said: “I must stay. If he faints, I’ll give him some of the ammonia, as you told me. And if he dies, I don’t want to live.”

  “You are young, and all young girls are fools,” said Lazy Wolf calmly. “Red Hawk won’t die, but he may drive himself crazy with all this watching.”

  “Will Standing Bull get well?” she begged.

  “Rusty is doing all that every doctor in the world could manage,” said the trader. “Standing Bull ought to be dead before this, but, since he’s lived this long, the chances are that he’ll get well. There’ll be a change for the better before very long, and once he starts getting well . . . why, I know how tough the Cheyenne stock is.”

  “But Red Hawk is not Cheyenne, except in his soul. He is killing himself, Father.”

  “Young men take a lot of killing,” said the trader. “If you want to stay here and enjoy the suffering, do it. I won’t prevent you.”

  And he went off, whistling.

  It was not long after that that the frightened squaws of Running Elk fled from the teepee and stood about it, holding up their hands to keep passers-by silent. So a speechless crowd began to form in a pool about the lodge of the medicine man. Strange howlings, growls, beast noises, human screams issued from the teepee.

  And the squaw explained: “Running Elk is listening to the spirits. The Sky People are telling him things that he doesn’t want to hear. Listen to him shouting to keep their voices out of his ears. It is something about Red Hawk.”

  The crowd had grown large before Running Elk came to the entrance of his lodge and pushed the flap aside. He stood leaning against the horse post, with his head sunk on his scrawny old chest, in the attitude of perfect despair. Several of the older warriors came toward him, but they moved slowly, unwilling to come too near to one who, obviously, had been wrestling with the powers of another world.

  “What is it, Running Elk?” asked a scarred chief. “What have the animal voices told you?”

  “I tried to argue and fight against them,” said Running Elk in a husky, feeble voice. “But what can even a medicine man do when the Sky People have made up their minds? This is a sad day for the Cheyennes. Standing Bull, I am told by the spirits, cannot get well unless Red Hawk is put in the Valley of Death, and the mouth of the valley guarded until he is dead.”

  Running Elk turned with a groan of despair and disappeared into his lodge.

  Then his voice could be heard by the silent, stricken people outside as Running Elk said: “Save your servant, Sweet Medicine. Save Red Hawk from death. Lift him in your claws. Carry him out of the Valley of Death.”

  In the medicine lodge itself gathered all those warriors and old men who, in the course of their lives, had counted five notable coups. Near the central fireplace of the lodge sat Running Elk, the palms of his hands upturned, his face raised, as he prayed continually to the Sky People.

  The warriors, hooded to the eyes in buffalo robes, listened silently to the medicine man. At last, when he made a pause, an ancient brave stood up and let his robe fall to the hips.

  “Running Elk,” he said, “why should the Sky People wish to send Red Hawk to his death in the valley? If we lose him from the tribe, we have lost our greatest warrior. Who else has counted so many coups? Who else has brought us so much good weather? Who has healed so many of our sick?”

  “I listen,” said Running Elk, in his saddest voice, “and the Sky People say to me that they are unhappy. They cannot turn their faces toward the Cheyennes, because in the tribe they see honor and the first place given to a man whose skin is white, and to a man who could not endure the fear and the pain of initiation.

  “The Sky People love the Cheyennes, but they are ashamed when they see Red Hawk among us. That is why they let Standing Bull lie weak as a woman, dying. They say that Red Hawk must die. Each of you has a white stone, and each has a black stone. Drop whichever you will into this bowl. The black stones mean death.”

  They stood up in order, the oldest first, the youngest last, and one by one went to the big earthen bowl near the fire, each dropping in a stone, while Running Elk sat by, praying in a soft voice continually: “Sky People, begin to look at us again. We have sacrificed many things to you. We pray to you every day. We pray now that we may do the right thing and please you. Do not break our hearts with misfortune. We know that it is better for one man to die who is not of our blood than for all the tribe to be in misery.”

  He did not end his soft-voiced but audible praying, until the last stone had been dropped into the bowl. And when he looked down into it, he had to bite his thin old lips to keep from smiling. For nearly every stone was black. There were not enough white ones to make the entire mass seem grey.

  The medicine man stood up, gathered his robe about him, and said grimly: “The voice has been heard. Red Hawk must die.”

  Chapter Seven

  They came in a small procession, with heads downward. Running Elk remained outside the lodge of Standing Bull. Four of the most prominent veteran warriors of the Cheyennes entered and one of them laid a hand on the shoulder of Rusty Sabin. He looked up and saw the face of the brave painted black.

  “Is it war, brother?” asked Rusty huskily.

  “It is death, Red Hawk,” said the brave. “The Sky People have spoken. They have spoken in a clear voice. You must go to the Valley of Death before life can come back to Standing Bull. You must go so that the Cheyennes may become a clean people again. My heart is sick and weak like the heart of a woman, but the Sky People are our fathers. We must do as they bid us.”

  Rusty Sabin stood up in a trance and left the lodge, walking past the frozen face of Blue Bird, the stricken fear of the two squaws of Standing Bull.

  In the open air, he found the bright sun flashing on the silk of White Horse. Exhaustion made all the background of the scene whirl before his eyes. He mounted the stallion; the warriors closed about him; the procession started with the braves holding their war lances reversed, the points sloping back toward the ground as they would have carried them if returning from battle in which a great war chief had been killed. Except for the escort, Rusty saw only one face as they rode from the camp.

  All the others, even the women, even the children, suddenly turned their backs when they saw the solemn cortège, but Running Elk showed his face with the cruel, placid smile of age upon it.

  One flash of rage and clear understanding entered the befogged mind of Rusty, as he understood to whom the Sky People must have spoken. But all the way from the camp to the Valley of Death his weary brain was benumbed, and his tired body kept sinking to sleep. He was in fact drowsing on the back of the stallion with lowered head when the procession halted and many strong hands helped him to the ground.

  He looked around him with a clearing brain. He remembered the place. Every Cheyenne had passed it with a shudder of cold flesh. It was not half a mile from the entrance of the Sacred Valley on which he alone, of all men, had looked. And this gorge, cleft in the same tall hills, was the exact opposite of the flowering green of the Sacred Valley. For here no river ran. It was a box cañon, surrounded on all sides by impregnable walls hundreds of feet high. It was a bottle from which no man ever had escaped once the narrow jaws of the entrance were blocked.

  To this place Indians who had lost the savor of life and wished for death often came. Here they entered, killing their horses at the mouth of the terrible ravine and taking the oath to give themselves to the Sky People. Across the entrance lay the whitening skeletons, the long bones, the horrible, dark-eyed skulls of the dead horses. And inside, men said, were the skeletons of hundreds of Indians who, in the course of the ages, had come to die in this place.


  Nearly all were voluntary suicides, but now and again the tribe would pick out some culprit who had proved himself a danger to the people and escort him to the Valley of Death.

  He looked up. Inside the entrance gap, he saw the naked shimmer of the cliffs in the sun, and high against the thin, sun-washed blue of the sky he saw three small blots of darkness circling—buzzards wheeling over the charnel house. They were proof that something had just died in the valley, or else with prophetic instinct they knew that something was about to die. Tales were told of the horrible birds beginning their feast even before the last glimmer of life was gone from horse or dog or man.

  “Here is your knife, Red Hawk,” said the oldest of the braves. “With one stroke of this you may kill White Horse at the entrance to the valley and so make sure that your spirit will be well mounted for the Happy Hunting Grounds.”

  Rusty took the knife. He stripped saddle and bridle from the stallion. He raised the blue sheen of the curving knife blade toward the sun.

  “Listeners above, listeners underground,” he said. “Out of the wilderness I took White Horse. He has carried me to famous deeds. As far as the name of the Cheyennes is known, White Horse is known also. I return him to the places from which he came. Go!”

  With that, he slashed the lariat that was noosed around the neck of the horse and flung up his hands. The stallion wheeled in sudden fright, and fled away, turning himself into a glimmering streak with his speed until he was lost from view among the great rocks that were scattered over the plain at the mouth of the gorge.