by Max Brand
Suddenly Charlie Galway began to laugh. These animals had no fear of man.
Well, he would teach them different ideas. Before long, he would have their hides cured and ready for the market. He would have their meat dried. The simplest thing in the world to build a barrier across the mouth of the valley.
As for the present inhabitant or inhabitants—well, they would have to talk to his rifle. And he knew who would win that argument.
He gave up the thought of shooting game. That could wait until he was ready to eat. No matter where he paused, there would be a full meal of fresh meat waiting, in whatever direction he turned his rifle.
Sacred Valley? It was, in fact, a sort of hunter’s paradise.
He came to the lake. It was much smaller, now, than the dimensions to which it had been spread by the dam. Most of the big stones of the dam had been washed and rolled away. There was only a small body of water and on every side of it a muddy stretch streaked and worn by the rush of the water when the dam was broken.
He could understand now, and perfectly, how the thing happened and how the great rush of water had been loosed into the lower ravine of the river. The moving of a few big stones—and then the pouring of the loosened water would complete the rest of the work and let the whole lake rush off down the ravine.
Charlie Galway, sharpening his eyes, scanned the valley on all sides. But still there was no sign of a dweller. He would have to be on the look-out for the twang of a bowstring and an arrow discharged from one of the many coverts.
Then, to the side, in the midst of the muddy margin of the lake, just beginning to crust over with a dry upper layer, he saw a thin streak of something that flashed—something that flashed with a rich yellow color.
Charlie Galway, instantly, was off his horse and floundering out into the mud. He reached that yellow streak—no it was not the one toward which he had started. Instead, it was a smaller color nearer at hand. And there were others—streaks and little patterns of the same rich yellow. He scooped up some of the mud. In a rivulet he washed it clear. In the palm of his hand remained a dozen little specks or tiny pebbles of a heavy yellow metal.
Out of a handful of mud, this much gold, gold, gold!
He wanted to swallow it. The passion of joy made him throw back his head and look toward the sky with an instinctive outswelling of joy, and of gratitude.
But God had nothing to do with this great discovery. It was the work of his own sharp brain and his brave heart that had enabled him to find the way to the source of Rusty Sabin’s wealth.
Here—with his single hand—to wash out a week’s wages—why, what could a man do with a proper mining pan?
And it was his—all his—as soon as the setter of traps, the keeper of the valley was out of the way.
Chapter Sixteen
There had to be a death. Charlie Galway waded out of the mud again and got back to his horses, where the pack animals were tearing at the long grass of the pasture land.
There had to be a death, and that must be the man who had made and set the rabbit trap in the grass. Galway herded his horses loosely together and drove them around the edge of the lake until, on the upper margin of the lake, he was able to see, half hidden among the trees, the outlines of a house, thatched at the top, built apparently of some sort of bricks.
He could not have been more amazed if he had seen a Greek temple in the midst of a strange wilderness. A house built of bricks!
He approached it by making, in the first place, a wide circle. Nothing living responded to him. Nothing showed within or outside the place.
At last, he stalked the house and peered in at a door. What he saw inside was a quite empty interior where there had been placed a few chairs made of withes and willows after the Indian style but according to the white man’s idea of convenience. This startled the observer almost more than the fact that a house of flat bricks had been found at the end of nowhere.
He turned back to stare about him. Still there was no observer anywhere near him. No matter how he squinted into the brush, he could see no shadowy outlines of a lurking form, no glint of a weapon.
At last he went into the house. The packages of dried rabbit’s meat, the harvested bushels of oats were such preparations as any Indian might make against winter. The bed of woven willow rods, more supple than any mattress, was of Indian manufacture, also. But this manufacture was cruder, he thought, than he had ever seen coming from the hands of Indian women.
The chairs were undoubtedly meant for a white man’s idea of convenience, and what Indian architect since the beginning of time would have designed and partially constructed the big fireplace and chimney? This was a white man’s notion. But, on the other hand, where was there to be found a white man who would attempt such tasks as these without the slightest evidence of steel tools or weapons?
He examined the boards of the floor. They were half logs that had been worked, apparently, by fire and dull edges. Steel could not have been used to batter the wood half smooth, in this fashion. He found in a corner a clumsy fish spear with a bone trident. He found a stone axe, the head lashed onto the wooden haft by the use of tendons, wound and rewound.
This he took across his knees, sitting in one of the homemade chairs, and studied at length. It was made of flint, in the head, and the stone was not properly bound to the haft. He had seen more than one stone tomahawk and other stone implements of the Indians, but none had been fastened so clumsily. It was an improvised tool, he would have said.
And yet what man would have made such things?
No Indian, he could swear, would have had the thought, the patience to build such a house. And yet what white man would even have attempted such a task without the proper materials at hand? The bricks of the walls, for instance, were misshapen—or, rather, they were shaped as though by hand, and not from any mold.
He was still considering when, it seemed to him, the light inside the room darkened a little.
He sat up straight, considering even this slight alteration of his environment. A moment later, the light was again bright. But it seemed to him that a faint, whispering sound came from behind him. At that, he leaped from his chair and tried to whip up the long, heavy rifle to his shoulder.
As he turned, he saw a man with long, flying red hair that streamed across his shoulders, and a face set for stern effort. Vaguely he realized, in the swirl of the attack, that it was Rusty Sabin who leaped in at him.
But that could not be. Rusty Sabin was dead. . . .
He fired, but, as his hand pulled the trigger of the rifle, the reaching hand of Rusty knocked the barrel of the rifle up and to the side.
He had missed. And in return he saw the blade of a knife flash before his eyes.
Yet it was not the point that struck home. At the last instant, he saw the flashing blade turn. It was the heavy butt that struck him between the eyes and felled him to the door.
He was not completely stunned, but his mind was half asleep as he felt the other lean over him and take away the revolver that he had belted on his hip. His hunting knife, similarly, was removed. His rifle, which had crashed to the floor, was lifted.
Then a hand was laid on his neck and remained there for a moment.
At last Rusty’s voice said: “You are living, Galway. Stand up, therefore.”
Galway rose. He was staggering a little. The room spun before his eyes. He lifted a hand and wiped the blood from his face, for the weight of the blow had split the flesh between his eyes.
Rusty said: “Sit down . . . there.”
Galway took a chair and waited.
The whole thing was growing obvious. Only a man who was neither Indian nor white could have done the things that he had witnessed in the valley—and was not Sabin the white Indian?
“You came here to rob the Sacred Valley,” said Sabin.
“I didn’t come here to rob,” said Galway. “I just came to look around.”
“I watched you when you ran into the mud of the lake,”
answered Sabin. “And when I saw you there, I read your mind. I know that the white men love gold, gold. You steal and murder to gain it. Gold. I knew your heart when I saw you in the lake, washing the gold with your hands.”
“Aye,” answered Galway. “When I saw that, I was sure that I was the first man in the valley. I didn’t dream that there was another man here before me.”
“No?” asked Rusty.
“It was only after that I saw your house, here.”
“I watched you all the time,” said Rusty. “You moved like a stalking cat. You had your rifle ready, and you were prepared to kill. Is that true?”
“You take a man in a strange country,” said Galway, “and he has to look out. A man that’s seen gold is going to be pretty light on his feet and pretty sharp in the eye.”
Rusty nodded, watching him. “What am I to do with you?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” said Galway. “We could make a partnership.”
“Partnership?”
“What I mean is this. I wouldn’t mean to get an equal share. You’re here on the ground. You found the gold. You ought to have most of it. But you take and develop a place like this and you need help. You need men and money. You need somebody inside to oversee things. You need an outside agent to keep handling the transportation. There’s gotta be somebody to command the trains that haul the loot away. There’s gotta be more than one man on the inside of this work. Well, you’re the main head of everything. But why shouldn’t I be the second one?
“There’s a good-size fortune in meat and hides standing on foot in this place, and then we could get in some plows and horses or mules and check the valley off into fields and start putting it to some use.”
“Do you think it is not of some use now?” asked Rusty.
“I dunno what use it is. Do you?”
“It is the garden of a god. It cannot be used by men, unless they are his priests,” said Rusty calmly. “Because you have entered the house of Sweet Medicine, you must die.”
He handled the revolver that he had taken from Galway. The calmness with which he spoke and the peculiar steadiness of his eye shot horror through the blood of Galway.
“But look here, Sabin,” he said, “you’re not the fellow to murder a man.”
“I won’t murder you,” said Rusty. “I’ll give you a gun to use. There’s another revolver in the holster on the saddle of your horse. You can have that.”
Galway could draw breath again. “I’ll fight it out with you, then,” he said. “I see you’re a right sort of man, Sabin. Everybody always has said that you’re a right square sort. Why the people in Witherell didn’t treat you better that night, I don’t know. You seen me talking for you and Standing Bull.”
“Did you talk for us?” asked Rusty.
Galway swallowed. The naïve childishness of this man in some ways, and his insight in other matters, made a combination that he could not understand. He continued his lie quickly: “I did what I could. When they started shooting, I knocked up the muzzles of some of the guns. I don’t say that I saved your life for you. But I tried to help.”
“Ah? Were you a friend to me?” Rusty sighed. “Tell me with an honest heart. Were you a friend?”
“You can see what I did,” said Galway. “I’ll tell you what. It sort of made me sick to think of a fine big fellow like Standing Bull being strung up for a thing that likely he didn’t do. And when you threw in with the Indian, I wanted to help the pair of you.”
“I seem to remember,” said Rusty, “that you were not altogether a friend, that night. But I may be wrong. If I kill you, Galway, it’s not because I really wish to harm you.”
“Then what’s all the talk about fighting it out with the guns?”
“You have come into the house of the god, and therefore you must die.”
“How do you know,” said Galway, “that Sweet Medicine doesn’t want me in here? Why was I led inside the Sacred Valley if Sweet Medicine didn’t want me here?”
“He will make that clear to us when we shoot at one another,” said Rusty. “I have done many bad things. It may be that I shall die and that you will serve the god in my place. Perhaps he has brought you here to be his servant.”
“You don’t put a whale of a lot of trust in him?” asked Galway.
“I trust him as far as I can know him,” said Rusty. “But how can a man know the whole will of a god? If I were a good man, my heart should be filled with happiness to live in the house of Sweet Medicine and to see his face every day. But I find myself in pain many times. I grow hungry for my people. The voice of the waterfall is not enough. It may be that my unhappiness displeases the god. Are you ready to take the other gun?”
Galway stood up. His head was clear. His eye was bright. However excellent a shot Rusty might have been in former days, he hardly could be in practice after all this length of time without guns. But with Galway an hour a day of target practice was religiously observed.
He walked out of the doorway ahead of Rusty and went straight to his saddle horse. He pulled the Colt out of the holster, and he could have laughed as he faced Rusty. The fellow was crazy, with his talk about the Indian god. And in the hands of a crazy man the treasures of the Sacred Valley could not be left. There was a sort of fate in this—a fate that had led him to the valley so that its resources should be properly exploited. History would not forget the name of Charlie Galway. A rough man, but a fellow who did things worthwhile.
When he saw Rusty standing at perfect ease, with the Colt hanging loosely down in his hand, a slight pity touched Galway. In that man, he felt, there was a purity of mind such as could not be found in others, but there was the simplicity of a savage, also, and the simple creatures must fall before the more complex brains of civilized man.
“When you’re ready, tell me,” said Rusty carelessly.
“What sort of a signal do you want?” asked Galway.
“I don’t know. Whatever you please. When that bull bellows again from the buffalo herd, for instance?”
“Ready, then,” said Galway.
He stood tense, his weight a little forward on one foot, and Rusty, at ease, awaited the next booming thunder from the throat of the bull on the farther side of the lake.
It came, a vast, thick, confused note. The two guns leaped in the hands of the fighters. They exploded almost on an instant, or rather the two shots were so close together that they made one detonation.
Something whirred past the ear of Rusty. His own bullet knocked the gun from the hand of Galway and flung the heavy revolver back against his face. Galway, knocked prone on his back, lay senseless.
And Rusty turned straight toward the cave of Sweet Medicine.
“Your hand turned the bullet, oh, Father,” he said. “Your hand struck the blow for me. You are not angry with your servant, then?”
He went to the place where big Charlie Galway lay. The man breathed. Rusty lifted his Colt and took aim between the eyes. And at that moment they opened and looked wildly upward. The gun sank in the hand of Rusty. He stretched out an arm toward the cavern in the cliff.
“Give me a sign, Father!” he called.
There was no stir at the mouth of the cave. There was only a vaguely ringing echo flung back from the face of the rock.
Chapter Seventeen
Because only that hollow, booming echo came back from the cliff, Charlie Galway rode in safety out of the Sacred Valley that day. He had one rifle and one revolver with him. The other guns remained with Rusty. He sat on White Horse at the mouth of the ravine and called after Galway: “If you should come again, remember Sweet Medicine! The god will strike you down the moment your foot enters the gate of the ravine. Or he may use my hand to destroy you!”
Charlie Galway made no answer. The pain of his wounded face blurred his thoughts somewhat, but he already had mapped in his mind the plan of his campaign. In the Sacred Valley there was a half-Indian fanatic who worshipped the god of a barbarous tribe, a fanatic
now armed to the teeth and on his guard. The next intruder certainly would die the moment Rusty could put a bullet through him.
But Rusty was a very small barrier compared with the treasure to which he blocked the way. If Charlie Galway could not master the valley by himself, he would find a way in which he could raise up a whole army, if necessary. They would break through into the golden land in spite of all the Cheyennes in the world. He knew, in Witherell, a choice selection of hardy fellows to whom the sight of a handful of gold dust would bring visions of a brighter land than paradise.
A hundred of those frontier gallants would cut their way to the Sacred Valley and into it and out again with their treasure in spite of the Cheyennes—if all went well.
The mind of Galway did not dwell on the fact that this would be a shabby return to a very generous enemy. He was capable of gratitude, but it never could be in him a feeling as strong as the pain from his wounded face. When he thought of Rusty Sabin, he thought of a madman. And madmen don’t count in this world of Galways.
And yet there remained in the mind of Galway a powerful picture of that moment when he opened his eyes and saw above him the leveled revolver in the hand of Sabin. Why the bullet had not been fired he could not imagine. And yet he guessed, vaguely, that there was something in the nature of Sabin superior to his own world. Because he guessed this, a sullen anger began to rise in his soul.
It was to increase, rapidly, each time he reflected on the adventure of the Sacred Valley until he began to feel, in the end, a sort of righteous indignation when he recalled how frankly, how almost nobly, he had suggested a partnership to Rusty, a partnership in which Rusty could have retained three-quarters of the spoils.
And, again, it began to seem to Galway that he was performing an act on behalf of all mankind if he scared the dog out of the manger. He was only concerned in securing himself ten shares of the spoils, as captain of the invading army. But, oh, if he could have had the looting of the Sacred Valley all to himself. That vision of splendid hope, lost forever, would haunt him to the end of his life.
