The Sacred Valley

by Max Brand

  Second, white men are half warriors and half squaws, therefore they are contemptible. They have dim eyes, ears that cannot hear, and no sense of smell. They fight to kill, not to be glorious. They are afraid of the beautiful prairies and lose their way more than children. The sun is not their father and the moon is not their sister. They deform their feet with hard leather, and therefore they neither can run nor walk. Because they are afraid of the sun, they wear heavy things on their heads. They work all day long like squaws, because they are shameless. A white man loves to lie. Wonderful to state, they even lie to one another.

  Third, white women keep off their feet as much as possible. They sit a great deal. All the rest of the time they lie down. They keep something in their hands, sewing with a good deal of skill but making silly things of no importance. They are foolish; they love to gather together and giggle. They are cowards; they scream when they see even a mouse. They are cruel; they have been seen to strike little children many blows only because the children make a noise. They are selfish and will not let their men have two women.

  Under such main headings, Blue Bird gathered her knowledge of the whites. Among all these people there were two exceptions: Red Hawk and the woman he loved.

  Fear began to grow up in the breast of the Indian girl as she entered the first street of the little town. Far away, a whistle blew, with a terrible power, ripping the sky apart, cutting into her brain. She heard men laughing inside a house—bawling, horrible, meaningless laughter. She heard a baby crying, not the sweet, sad sound of a Cheyenne baby that makes the noise “Ai! Ai! Ai!” but a disgusting, booing complaint.

  Into the sobbing of the baby rattled the harsh voice of a white woman. Blue Bird heard a sound of blows. The baby began to scream. The Indian girl gasped and put her hands over her ears.

  She hurried her horse on. Out of the wooden lodges streamed brilliant lights. Unpleasant smells of strange cookery reached her nostrils; she heard metal clatterings. The memory of the Cheyenne village rolled back upon her mind and made her heart ache.

  How could Red Hawk have chosen one of these people to be his squaw?

  A group of small boys came swirling out into the street, knocking up a cloud of dust, yelling at one another. Blue Bird sighed with relief,

  She called out to them: “Will you tell me the place where Maisry Lester lives?”

  “Hey! Look-it! It’s an Indian gal!” they cried at her.

  A shaft of dim lamplight swept over her. She smiled and made a friendly gesture as she asked the question again.

  “That way,” said one of the lads. “Down there . . . the house with the two trees in front. Hey, who are you? Where did you come from? Are you a Pawnee? Who brought you here?”

  Questions are dangerous. She fled from them, galloping her horse, and they pursued her only a little distance before they fell into another dusty swirl of wild play.

  So she reached the house and tethered the Indian pony to one of the trees in the front yard. A single light burned at the rear of the place. She looked through the window, touching with her hand curiously the dry ice through which the light shone.

  Inside, she saw Maisry Lester, alone, sitting at a kitchen table with her face in her hands. The jealous heart of the Cheyenne was touched.

  The brightness of the hair, the slenderness of the hands held her eyes. She wore a dress that seemed to Blue Bird of great worth, for it was a printed calico. The design, the pattern, the color amazed Blue Bird.

  She went with soft steps up the back porch and tapped at the door.

  “Who is there?” asked a small, weary voice.

  Critically Blue Bird examined that voice. She had remembered it too dimly. It was not like the voice of any other white, for it contained a real music.

  “It is I!” she called in answer. “It is Blue Bird.”

  A footfall came suddenly. The door was snatched open. She saw Maisry Lester’s face full of startled joy, and then the white girl caught her in her arms. She used that strange white custom of kissing. But it was not very offensive. There was a clean, sweet smell about Maisry that was not unpleasant. It was not as good as the real smoky Indian smell, but it was not horrible, like the odor of most whites.

  “Blue Bird, what have you come to tell me?” cried Maisry Lester. “What has brought you so far?”

  Now that she had the full picture before her, the Indian girl stared, fascinated, into the blue eyes of Maisry. Blue eyes, she felt, were not as beautiful by half as black or dark brown, and yet there was a sort of shining color in them. The color of the eyes went with the color of the hair, like something painted very skillfully. Her skin was very pale, very pale. She was paler than Red Hawk ever became, even when he had been ill and remained out of the sun for a long time.

  “Tell me . . . are you the squaw of some warrior now?” asked the Cheyenne.

  “No,” said Maisry.

  “Do you wait for Red Hawk?” asked Blue Bird.

  She saw the white girl blanch and the sight wrung her heart, but also gave her a cruel pleasure.

  “Yes,” said Maisry.

  “Would you wait all your life for a dead man?” asked Blue Bird, more cruelly than ever.

  “Yes,” said Maisry.

  Blue Bird sighed. There was a greatness of spirit in this pale-faced girl. There was something shining about her. She was not tall—she was not strong—but her heart was great.

  If ever her voice sounded within the hearing of Red Hawk—no, not even the god could restrain him.

  There was a vast urge in Blue Bird to flee away from the house, and never to set eyes on Maisry again. And yet an iron sense of duty held her.

  She looked up, and it seemed to her that the beauty of the Sacred Valley unrolled again before her eyes. The god had sent her out from the place. His purpose, perhaps, was to drive her on to the whites, on to Maisry Lester, so that through Maisry the threatened war could be halted. Now the words poured suddenly from her throat: “I can take you to him. He is not dead. He is living, Maisry!”

  Chapter Twenty

  The trail lay wide and clearly beaten before the eyes of Rusty Sabin. So many scores of warriors with their war ponies and the herd of extra horses driven on by a select number of youth, who for the first time were on the warpath, could not pass over the green of the prairies without leaving unmistakable signs of their passing.

  Now and then parties diverged from the main road, the whole body splitting up into small sections that traveled toward varying points of the compass. Then the trailing task became difficult, for each of the smaller bodies attempted to lay a good trail puzzle behind them as soon as they reached a dry ravine or a stream that enabled them to make a problem for a pursuer.

  If Rusty lost the trail of the group that he had selected, he would lose the trend of the whole march. Three times he was stopped for a considerable interval by these cunningly constructed puzzles, but on each occasion he was able to work out the solution and ride on.

  He was strangely happy. The Sacred Valley, in all its beauty, remained somewhere in his mind as a lonely duty, not as a joyful place. He was away from the god’s place, and yet the god had not deserted him. As the dawn was born out of the pale moonlight of that first night, he shot a scurrying rabbit, and, as he dismounted to pick up the body, he felt before he saw the sweep of the broad, familiar wings above him. Looking up, he recognized the huge night owl of the Sacred Valley.

  Had he come to accept the sacrifice, even if it were not actually living game? Holding up the limp body, he whistled, and instantly the owl swooped. The talons, like a powerful skeleton hand, grasped the rabbit; the softly rushing wings bore the owl away on high.

  Rusty Sabin, looking after the soaring bird, saw it outlined jet black against the moon and the dawn for a moment, then it slid down into the darkness of the prairie. And Sabin laughed happily. This, certainly, was a veritable sign from heaven.

  Late that evening he saw the war party of the Cheyennes. They were making a forced march by moo
nlight, and the long column went over a slight rise of ground, printing themselves as a small black picture against the sky.

  Sabin took White Horse at a brisk gallop through an arc that cut across the course of the column. He waited in a hollow until he heard the tramping of the hoofs. He waited with the stallion flat on the ground, almost covered by the tall grass. And at his word, White Horse rose into view with Sabin in the saddle.

  The half dozen scouts who preceded the rest were not a hundred steps away when they saw that vision appear from nothingness. Red Hawk’s ghost on White Horse—a vision from another world. Their sudden yell of dismay was music to the ears of Sabin.

  They had halted. Two of them suddenly turned their ponies about and fled. The rest flung themselves on the ground and began to shout out prayers to the Sky People, prayers to Sweet Medicine.

  Sabin rode straight on, at a walk, without turning his head toward the voices of his red people. But his heart was stirred.

  Would the war party dare to continue after such a vision had crossed its way? In the distance he made the stallion sink into the depth of the grass. There he left White Horse and returned stealthily until he was close to the camp. The grass was a sufficient shelter.

  Peering through the high heads of the grass, he could see the rising of a column of smoke. Out of the distance he could hear the thrumming of a drum. And he understood.

  The Cheyennes had halted to make enough of a fire to raise a smoke of sweet grass in which they could purify themselves after the terrible vision of White Horse and the ghost of Red Hawk. After that, perhaps they would attempt to continue the war trail. If so, he would cross their way again.

  There was a small wind stirring the grass, and it kept a whispering sound about the ears of Sabin. He never would have heard the other noise that flowed through the sound of the wind; it was the sudden shudder that passed through the body of the stallion that warned him, and the lift and sudden sidewise twist of the head of White Horse.

  A snake, perhaps, slipping through the grass?

  Well, a snake would turn away from creatures so great. Still, the head of Sabin was turned and his nerves were strung to alertness when he saw, over his shoulder, a shadowy form rising, and the gleam of steel by the pale moonlight. The blow was not a downward cleaving stroke, but a sidelong sweep that was surer to bite home in some part of the body of the enemy. Rusty dropped loosely and lay prone on the ground. The long-bladed knife came into his hand as he heard the tomahawk whish over his head. The body of the other lurched toward him, following the stroke, and Rusty turned as a cat turns when it offers its claws to a foe. He stabbed upward and felt the knife blade glide through flesh and grit on bone, and drive deeper.

  A great hand gripped Rusty by the hair of the head. He stabbed upward again. The hand lost its power. The tomahawk fell idly in the grass. A loose weight dropped upon Sabin and rolled away from him.

  He got to his knees. White Horse was drawing great breaths of horror as it smelled the blood. And stretched before Sabin, vainly struggling to rise again, was a crop-headed Pawnee wolf. The moonlight slipped like water over the huge flow of muscles that covered his body. Among a nation of big men, he was a giant. He could not handle his own weight, but he intended to strike a last blow. The steel of his knife glistened as he dragged it out of the sheath of fringed leather.

  Rusty caught the mighty arm at the wrist. There was no more resistance in that arm than in the muscles of a child.

  “Die in peace,” said Rusty, “because I take no scalps. I count the coup on you, Pawnee . . . and that is all.”

  “Ah,” muttered the brave, “what bad fortune brought me to you? You are the friend of Sweet Medicine. You are Red Hawk, the great medicine man.”

  He sat up, clasping his body with one hand. The blood still poured from the terrible wounds he had received. He began to sing the death song, the words coming hoarsely from his throat and with a horrible bubbling in them.

  “Sky People, look down carefully. There is not much light . . . I cannot call loudly, but I am Long Arrow the Pawnee. I am the man who killed the white buffalo and sacrificed the skin to you. In the battle, I rode through the line of the Blackfeet and counted coup on a living warrior with a short stick. I stole the thirty horses from the Sioux. And I am the man who stole up in the night on the camp of the Cheyennes and killed the two braves with one knife.

  “And I took their scalps and hung them over my fire. Cheyenne hair hangs from the reins of my bridle. The hair of Blackfeet fringes my leggings. You see that I have lived a good life and that I have hope of the Happy Hunting Grounds. And then you led me against Red Hawk.

  “I struck with the hatchet and the hand of the god was put in front of it. I struck, and the body of a man turned into air and the stroke was lost. Sweet Medicine turned the tomahawk aside. He guided the knife into my body. The life runs out of me like water downhill. The pool is emptying. Receive me, my fathers.”

  The big body pitched to the side. Sabin, steadying it with a strong hand, laid back the limp weight of Long Arrow in the grass.

  It was a huge-featured face into which he looked, the nose high-arched and the mouth vast and thin-lipped. He never had seen a face more cruel, he thought. But any man who had killed a white buffalo and sacrificed it to the Sky People was, of course, a very good Indian.

  It seemed to Sabin that there had been some truth in the death chant of the dying man. Perhaps the invisible hand of Sweet Medicine, so swift that it can reach between a man and his thoughts, had intervened between the tomahawk and its target. Perhaps it was Sweet Medicine who had driven the knife home to the life.

  In that case, the body belonged to the god and not to the Cheyennes. For that purpose, and lest any man should claim that warrior or despoil him of his scalp, Rusty took from a little pouch at his belt a single soft owl feather, such as he found in the cave of Sweet Medicine, and tied it with a wisp of Long Arrow’s own hair.

  The drumbeat in the distance had ended. He heard a rhythmic beating of hoofs and then a confusion of impacts such as are made by the feet of many walking horses. And he saw that the Cheyennes were streaming forward. They had not turned back. They were coming straight along their original course.

  The teeth of Sabin gritted together. This was the work of Running Elk, of course. The old medicine man with mischief in his heart had persuaded the braves that the appearance of the ghost was perhaps a good sign, instead of a bad omen. And as the whole procession dipped out of sight in a slight hollow, Rusty again rose from the grass on the back of White Horse.

  The train was proceeding straight toward the place where the dead Pawnee scout was lying, and, as it pushed forward over the rise of ground, clear in the moonlight the braves could see White Horse stepping, and a shout of horror arose from many throats.

  The forward movement ended. Half of the braves scattered toward the rear, and, as before, a number flung themselves from the saddles to the ground. But Running Elk alone remained steadfast. He kicked his pony forward a short distance, and then reached up both skinny arms as he shouted: “Red Hawk, if you come back from the dead to the living, tell us what the Sky People wish to say to us!”

  Sabin, for an answer, lifted his right hand and waved it in the signal that warns a man to go back. Then he turned his head and rode on at a walk, for he felt that the walking horse would be a more apt picture to present the idea of a return from the dead, a mounted ghost.

  Behind him, he heard a sudden clamor. When he looked back, he saw that the shouting of Running Elk had put heart in some of the warriors so that they had remounted and pushed forward a little distance to stare along the trail of the ghost.

  So they had come on the spot where the dead Pawnee lay. And their yell of triumph turned suddenly into a familiar old chant in praise of Sweet Medicine.

  The war party began to pull saddles from their horses. Whatever happened, they would go no farther forward on this night.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Blue Bird sat cr
oss-legged and looked for a long time at Maisry. Maisry had started to sit in a chair, but she changed her mind and sat down on the floor, also, not cross-legged, but with her feet on one side and with her right arm supporting her weight.

  “You stay in the chair,” said Blue Bird.

  “No,” answered Maisry. “I’ll sit the way you do. I’m not above you, Blue Bird.”

  The Indian smiled. “It is so hard to hate you,” she said, “when I want to love you.”

  “Do you hate me?” asked the white girl.

  “There is Red Hawk,” said the Cheyenne.

  “Yes. There is he,” said Maisry.

  “You are very calm,” said Blue Bird. “You should not be so quiet. Look at me.”

  “I am looking,” said Maisry.

  “I am not ugly,” said Blue Bird. “Look at me again. Do you see how I am not ugly?”

  “I see very well.”

  “You must remember that, after all, Red Hawk is like a white man more than an Indian. A good Cheyenne brave, when he takes a wife, thinks how many horses she will cost, how many guns and buffalo robes. But a white man never thinks of how much work his wife will be able to do for him. He thinks more about how lovely she is. Do you understand me when I talk Cheyenne like this?”

  “Yes, I understand you very well.”

  “Ah hai, Maisry, if your skin had been as dark as mine, we could have loved each other, unless we fell in love with the same man. But you never could be one who might be bought for a price in horses and other things.”

  “I don’t know. I think I could have been bought,” said Maisry.

  “Maisry, when you say that, you are beautiful.”

  “When I say it, I feel very sad.”