by Max Brand
He drew up the girl to her feet, and then turned and walked out of the crowd.
She, still dizzy of mind and weak of body, saw all things unsteady and reeling before her. But through the dimness of the sunset she could see the terror only gradually fading out of those grotesquely painted faces. She could see them getting cautiously to their feet as though filled with fear.
But they drew back from before her as she walked after Sabin. They drew back as though she were a living flame. They stared at her with great, haunted eyes, and on all sides she heard the frightened, subdued, bass murmuring prayer: “Sweet Medicine, be merciful.”
It seemed to her that Rusty Sabin was a giant among men as he strode on.
The great White Horse followed him faithfully. Never once did he look behind toward the girl but, as an Indian chief should do, advanced with his head high, unaware of the world behind him, facing the future. She felt that she was, in fact, his woman, and went meekly behind him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Word came in to Galway on the run from a galloping horseman. Far ahead, the leading scouts had been met by a deputation of Cheyenne Indians, including one fat, bearded white man who acted as interpreter. The Indians wished to know why the whites were in their territory, and where they were heading. There were two or three hundred warriors on the warpath and it seemed advisable to go with care.
Galway simply said: “I’ll go out and break the bad news to them. I’ll let them know that we’re traveling with a hostage along with us. Eh, Blue Bird?”
He turned and looked at the Indian girl. She sat on the driver’s seat of a big wagon and turned an impassive face toward the speaker. But big Charlie Galway was accustomed to this indifference and paid no attention to it. He merely laughed.
“I’m going to show you to ’em, Blue Bird,” he said. “I think you’ll be the charm that shows us through.”
He did what he promised. He took ten picked men, with Blue Bird in the middle of them, and rode out to meet the Indians, advancing a hundred yards or more from the caravan. It had coiled into a circle like a sensitive worm, by this time, with ready marksmen, rifle in hand, looking out through the irregular wall made by the wagons. Indians were everywhere, by this time. They seemed to sprout up out of the tall grass in all directions. Their feathered heads showed here and there against the horizon. But the greater mass of them was directly in the line of the caravan’s intended march.
Just out of pointblank rifle fire, Galway halted his men, and at once a party of eleven Indians advanced from the throng ahead.
There was a horse litter in the eleven that came on; there was also a rider on a white horse.
Blue Bird cried out softly: “Red Hawk!”
Galway knew enough Cheyenne to identify that name. He turned and gave the girl a sharp glance. “What is Red Hawk to you, Blue Bird?” he asked.
But the girl was silent. There had been that moment of flashing excitement, and now she was calm again and looked at him with the filmed, unconscious eye.
The Indian deputation came on with the horse litter at the side of Rusty Sabin, whose red hair blew aslant on the breeze. They came straight up to Galway’s party, but, as they halted, the proud Cheyennes forgot their dignity to break out into a sudden chorus of exclamations. They were pointing—a thing a warrior never should do. It was Blue Bird that they were distinguishing. Only Sabin himself said not a word and gave no sign as he saw the girl. He merely called out: “Galway, the war chief of the Cheyennes is here with me! Standing Bull got up from a sickbed and came out to inquire why the whites were marching through the land of the Cheyennes. What answer have you for him?”
“We’re not the first caravan that ever went across the plains,” said Galway.
“The others were bound for California and gold,” said Rusty. “They carried along women and children . . . they went to make homes. You go out with a great many men and very few wagons. The Cheyennes are afraid that you mean to make trouble.”
A huge, emaciated Indian arose from the horse litter and stood beside Sabin. That was Standing Bull. The white men stared at him curiously, for his fame had reached Witherell long before. He looked like a man who should have remained in his bed for a considerable time. But the energy with which he had rallied himself to the field still remained fresh in him. He stood straight, handling a long lance, returning the stare of the white men with a proud interest.
Galway was answering: “Suppose that you and I ride apart, Rusty. We have some things to say to one another.”
“This way,” answered Sabin, and turned White Horse immediately to the side. He rode twenty or thirty paces from the others and Galway went out to meet him at once, merely saying to his men: “If anything happens, shoot down Sabin. I can’t tell you where we’re going, but I can say that he already knows. If he tries to murder me, get him out of the way and everything will be easy after that. Without him, the Cheyennes won’t be worth a damn. With him, they’re about as good as regular soldiers. He showed that a couple of years ago when he cleaned up the Pawnees.”
He rode up to Sabin, after that, leaving his men handling their rifles. The Indians, on their part, pretended no concern, but it was plain that the nervous tension was high on both sides.
As he came up drawing rein, Galway said: “Well, Rusty, I didn’t think that I’d run into you as far away from the Sacred Valley as all this.”
“You are going back to it, of course?” asked Sabin.
“Back to the Sacred Valley? No, we’re just out on a hunting trip.”
“It’s the gold of the Sacred Valley,” said Sabin. “Do your men know that?”
“They don’t know. What a fool I’d be to tell ’em,” answered Galway. “I’ll tell you what, Rusty, you’re a fool if you don’t throw in with us.”
“You swore to me,” said Sabin, “that you would never come back to the Sacred Valley.”
“An oath a fellow takes when it’s forced from him don’t count,” said Galway. “You had a gun on me when I promised that.”
“You lied to me then, and you would lie again,” said Sabin. “But turn around and go back to Witherell. I can guard the mouth of the Sacred Valley with half a dozen men.”
“If you block the way into the valley,” said Galway, “I’ll cut the throat of your sweetheart, Rusty. I’ll cut the throat of Blue Bird, back there.”
“Will you murder her? I think you will,” said Rusty slowly.
“Why, man,” answered Galway, “I saw her walk out of the Sacred Valley about a minute before the water came sluicing through. She had the look of a gal pretty dizzy with love. I reckon she’s worth a good deal to you. Take a sentimental damn’ fool like you, and she’s worth more than all the gold in the valley. Anyway, I make the bargain with you. Turn loose the Cheyennes and send them home, and I’ll turn loose Blue Bird and make it a bargain. Block my way into the Sacred Valley and I’ll raise hell with you . . . I’ll do it by rubbing out the Indian half-breed.”
Rusty looked earnestly on him. “I think it is the will of the god that I should kill you now, Galway,” he said.
“If you kill me,” said Galway carelessly, “I’ve got my men watching, and they’ll load you full of lead. I know you’re a fast man and an accurate man with a gun, Rusty. But the sooner I drop, the sooner you go to hell.”
“If I can keep the whites out of the Sacred Valley,” said Rusty, “do you think that I’m unready to die? Ah hai, Galway . . . you must think that life is a very great thing to me.”
Galway grew a little pale. He answered: “And after you’re dead . . . and me dead, too . . . what hell will happen to Blue Bird? I’ve kept a lot of trouble away from her since she’s been with us, already.”
“Blue Bird,” murmured Rusty Sabin, and then he was silent, still staring at the incredible infamy of this white man.
“Kind of hurts you, doesn’t it?” asked Galway. “I could see the gal fitted into your idea of a female, and you’re sour when you see her held up.”
“You have prices for all things,” said Rusty. “What is your price for Blue Bird?”
“Prices? Sabin . . . don’t be a fool . . . as long as we have her, we can get at the gold in the Sacred Valley. Can you offer us more than that?”
“I am more to the Cheyennes than Blue Bird,” said Rusty. “If I come into your hands, will you set her free to go back to her own people?”
“Set her free? Exchange her for you? Rusty, do you mean it?”
“I mean it.”
“Why, Rusty, you’re the chief interpreter of Sweet Medicine for the tribe. They’d as soon put Sweet Medicine in danger as let you be in trouble. You will exchange yourself for Blue Bird?”
“I don’t lie, as you do,” said Sabin. “I tell you the truth. Set the girl free, and I go in with you.”
“I’ll do it, then,” said Galway. “Will you come back with me now?”
“Yes. Now,” said Rusty. “I go to say farewell to the Cheyennes, and then I return.”
He swung away on White Horse and galloped back to the place where Standing Bull was now reclining in his horse litter of two saplings bound to the stirrups of a pair of ponies.
Sabin gripped the hand of the sick man. An eye of profound trust and of endless affection stared back at him.
“I go among the white men again, Standing Bull,” said Rusty. “This, I think, is the last time that I shall see you. Remember that I am Cheyenne to my last moment. Think of me in times of happiness. Farewell.”
He flashed back into the saddle and was away before Standing Bull could grasp the significance of these words and make a protest or any answer. But the Cheyennes began to shout in astonishment when they saw that worker of great medicine, Red Hawk himself, pass carelessly into the group of the white men about Galway.
Sabin heard Galway order: “Turn the girl loose, some of you, and let her go back to her own kind.” He heard the words, but he did not see the wink that accompanied them. For the rest, his eyes were blinded by melancholy as he rode on among the riflemen.
He had left Maisry in the safe hands of Lazy Wolf, who had accompanied Standing Bull into the plains to join the war party. It would be grief for her when she knew that he was gone. It would be grief for Blue Bird when she knew that his life was paying for hers. But he felt, with a strange certainty, that he was no more than a price that must be laid down. A white skin and the soul of an Indian, life appeared to him an endless entanglement.
In the grip of that thought, he entered the gap in the circle of wagons and heard vaguely, behind him, the angry shouting of the Cheyennes. At last they were seeming to understand what had happened.
And then he heard Galway shouting: “When you look around for a smart trader, remember me, lads! I’ve taken out Blue Bird and brought her back . . . and along with her, I’ve got one that’s worth ten Blue Birds. I’ve got the great medicine man himself . . . I’ve got the fool of a white Indian. I’ve got Rusty Sabin himself.”
Sabin jerked up his head from the bewilderment of his thoughts and saw that it was true. Behind him, in the cluster of Galway’s riders, was Blue Bird!
Chapter Twenty-Six
There was only a single comment from Rusty Sabin. He merely said: “I was born too foolish to live among the whites . . . and my white skin keeps me from being a Cheyenne . . . I am a man of nothing. Only the god will have me. But you . . . Galway . . .”
He jerked the revolver from its holster on his saddle as he spoke, but he was much too late. Big, capable hands grappled his arm and made him helpless; the gun was jerked from his grasp; a lariat tossed over his shoulders bound his arms tightly to his sides.
He could hear the voice of Blue Bird crying out: “Red Hawk, was it for me? Was it for me? How worthless and wretched I am!”
Then her voice ceased. She was being hurried off to the cover of a wagon. A huge shouting arose from all the men inside the laager. There was laughter and a joyous uproar; many shouted praises of Galway.
And in another moment the order was given, and the wagons began to move forward. They roughly maintained their circle. Outside of them, the Cheyennes swept down in charge after charge, never driving the shock home because they knew that, in case of an attack, both Blue Bird and the greatest of their medicine men would die at once in the hands of the whites. But they had to give some vent to their fury. And so they raged around and around the caravan, shooting their rifles into the air, yelling like fiends.
Far away among the Cheyennes, where Standing Bull was being transported in his horse litter and watching the vain charges of his people, the old, dry-faced medicine man, Running Elk, was shouting: “Now, if Red Hawk is the favored son of Sweet Medicine, let the god work for him! If his medicine is strong, let him rip apart the circle of the wagons . . . that is easy for a god to do. Nothing is hard for Sweet Medicine.”
And inside the circle, Galway was saying to one of his men, simply: “If we try to carry this fellow along with us, he’ll slip away. Iron can’t hold and ropes can’t tie a man with a brain and a heart like Sabin’s. There’s only one way to make sure of him. Shoot him down and carry the body in one of the wagons until we’ve come to the place where we’re bound.”
“What’s the good of him dead, when he can be a real hostage living?” was the reasonable answer.
“We’ll have White Horse to show the Cheyennes,” said Galway. “Who’ll do this good turn for me? Who’ll put a bullet through the brain of Rusty Sabin? Anyway, it ain’t hardly more’n justice. He was likely to’ve been lynched back there in Witherell. He’s only sort of getting what’s coming to him. Buck, will you turn the trick for me?”
“Partner,” said Buck, “maybe it’s good policy, and I guess you’re right, but I’d hate like hell to shoot a man that puts himself in trouble for the sake of a gal . . . only a half-breed gal, at that.”
“Jimmy, will you do it?”
“Excuse me, Captain. His eyes is too straight for me. I’d have to shoot crooked. My bullets wouldn’t hit that kind of a man.”
“Then I’ll do it myself” said Galway. “Aye, and glad to, at that.” He turned the head of his horse and rode straight toward his prisoner.
“Take the lariat off of him,” he commanded. “Rusty, you’re about to die. White Horse can go on without you. But I won’t have you die with your hands tied. Nobody can say that I ever killed a man whose hands were tied.”
* * * * *
Blue Bird, in her wagon, stared at the floor with sick, dizzy eyes. There was a smell of salty gunpowder in the air. Black grains of it rolled and jounced like living mites on the boards. And a big keg of it, newly broached, lay on its side.
She looked forward toward the driver of the wagon, and the man beside him. She looked back over the high tailboard. The driver of the mules was lighting his pipe, now, and putting down the box of matches on the seat beside him.
She pulled the plug from the broached cask. There were half a dozen more of those casks piled in the end of the schooner. Now from the mouth of this one a steady stream of black began to pour. She went forward.
A cloud can steal unnoticed across the sky unless it passes the sun. And the hand of a clock moves unseen. But more slowly and casually than that was the drifting of Blue Bird toward the front of the wagon until her hand reached out and slipped the matchbox away.
The striking of the match rasped loudly on her ears, on her nerves. It caused the driver to jerk his head around.
“Hey! Hey! What’s up . . . Blue Bird, oh . . . God!” And he snatched out his revolver.
Blue Bird had dropped the match into the wide train of powder. She had intended to make a sacrifice of herself, willingly, not to save Rusty, but because life was worthless to her after he had been betrayed through his fondness for her.
But when she saw the flare of the red burning powder, instinct made her move like a frightened cat. She leaped the tailboard of the wagon and past the noses of the mules just behind. A bullet from the driver’s gun whirred past her head.
Her feet struck the ground. She ran with all her might as a vast explosion roared behind her, picked her up, thrust her far forward.
She struck with a loose body—like a cat again—and rolled to her feet, still running. Behind her she dared not glance.
* * * * *
Galway had been saying, as he rode at the side of Sabin: “The Indians won’t notice the noise. The whites won’t tell ’em. And so you’ll die for nothing, Rusty. You that have been so damn’ big, you’ll die like a mouse in the field. Sing out for your god, now. Sing out for Sweet Medicine and see if his medicine is worth a damn when you’ve got white men around you.”
Sabin lifted his freed hands. It was hard to drag the right one past the handle of the long-bladed knife at his belt. But what is a mere knife compared with the interposition of a god?
And he prayed to himself: Sweet Medicine, look down at me. Here am I among the white men again. But you have not forgotten me. See that with lies and deception they possess me. Therefore show the strength of your hand. Befriend me. Life is not sweet to me. Death would be easy, but for the sake of your own power and your fame among men . . .
There the sky ripped apart and the earth shuddered. A whole wagon turned into a sheet of red flame. The wagons preceding and following were wrecked. Men were flung flat on the ground out of the saddles. Men walking were knocked over like ninepins.
But both Sabin and Galway kept their saddles. The shock of the explosion made Galway fire a random bullet into the air. He had no chance to fire again, for the gun was ripped from his hand by Red Hawk, and a sixteen-inch blade of steel flashed like a sword toward the throat of Galway.
He threw up an arm to guard his life. But he was late, much too late. The last he saw of life was the strangely cold, calm face of Sabin, and then a red flash of agony as the blade swept through the tender flesh of the throat, deep, deep as the neck bone.
