by Max Brand
Sabin leaped White Horse through the wreckage of the wagons and rushed out into the open prairie; the dismal outcry of the men of the caravan seemed to diminish behind him, blown away into the past, but before him he saw the slender form of Blue Bird running.
He understood, when he saw her, what had happened, and, slowing the stallion, he called to her. She reached up; she leaped for his foot in the stirrup and he caught her with a strong arm. They galloped on.
“Ah hai! Ah hai!” he heard her cry out. “Let me die now . . . now . . . there would be no pain!”
A sweeping charge of a hundred Cheyennes bore raging down toward them, aiming at the wagons. Once arrived, they would make short work of the whites. But Rusty felt a stirring of instinct and blood that made him shout and wave his arm. The charge halted, piled up in a confusion, as he cried: “Let them be! It was the work of the god, not of man. They are in the hands of Sweet Medicine. They will turn back. Do not touch them.”
The shouting Cheyennes swerved around and around the caravan, but the word of their worker of miracles was not disobeyed. Not a single charge was pressed home.
* * * * *
As the evening came on, the reformed caravan was seen to turn and begin, slowly, the toilsome march back toward Witherell. With the death of their leader they had lost their goal.
Over the Indian camp, that night, there was a madness of delight. For the scouts kept bringing back word that the retreat of the white men continued. And in the morning the Cheyennes could start back toward their town strengthened by the knowledge that a battle had been won for them by their god alone and the magic of Red Hawk. There was no sad or silent face among them except that of Running Elk, who sat cross-legged on the ground with his robe drawn over his head, unnoticed, powerless, despised by his tribe.
And the happiest of all those groups in the camp was, beyond a doubt, that little cluster of Lazy Wolf, Standing Bull, and Blue Bird, with Maisry among them.
“But now what will come?” asked Blue Bird. “Which of us two, Maisry? Which will he take?”
“Whoever he chooses,” said Maisry, “there will be no hate left among us, will there, Blue Bird?”
“No,” said the Indian girl. “But what will he do?”
They had to find him first, before they could tell. And he was nowhere to be seen. No doubt he was following with the scouts the train of wagons that journeyed back toward Witherell, to make sure that no mischief occurred between reds and whites.
And then, in the heart of the night, an Indian rode to the little campfire of the chief and spread on the ground his buffalo robe. On the bare hide words had been written in the hand of Rusty Sabin with charcoal.
To Maisry and Blue Bird, to Lazy Wolf, and to my brother, Standing Bull:
Oh, my friends, where I go among you I bring sorrow. The red men sharpen their knives against one another. The white men commit murder. No trust comes to me.
My own heart is divided, for if my right hand held that of Maisry, my left hand would go out to Blue Bird. These things cannot be.
In the west there are tall, blue mountains, and blue is the color of heaven and of peace. I am traveling toward them. If I find wisdom and a quiet mind, I shall return to you again.
Farewell. My heart aches. My heart is colder than a winter morning. To die is no great sorrow, but it is not the will of the god that I should live among you. The red of my heart and the white of my skin have cursed me.
Pray for me. Offer sacrifice. Love one another. Farewell.
Red Hawk
Rusty Sabin
THE END
About the Author
Max Brand is the best-known pen name of Frederick Faust, creator of Dr. Kildare, Destry, and many other fictional characters popular with readers and viewers worldwide. Faust wrote for a variety of audiences in many genres. His enormous output, totaling approximately 30,000,000 words or the equivalent of 530 ordinary books, covered nearly every field: crime, fantasy, historical romance, espionage, Westerns, science fiction, adventure, animal stories, love, war, fashionable society, big business, and big medicine. Eighty motion pictures have been based on his work along with many radio and television programs. For good measure he also published four volumes of poetry. Perhaps no other author has reached more people in more different ways.
Born in Seattle in 1892, orphaned early, Faust grew up in the rural San Joaquin Valley of California. At Berkeley he became a student rebel and one-man literary movement, contributing prodigiously to all campus publications. Denied a degree because of unconventional conduct, he embarked on a series of adventures culminating in New York City where, after a period of near starvation, he received simultaneous recognition as a serious poet and successful author of fiction. Later, he traveled widely, making his home in New York, then in Florence, and finally in Los Angeles.
Once the United States entered the Second World War, Faust abandoned his lucrative writing career and his work as a screenwriter to serve as a war correspondent with the infantry in Italy, despite his fifty-one years and a bad heart. He was killed during a night attack on a hilltop village held by the German army. New books based on magazine serials or unpublished manuscripts or restored versions continue to appear so that, alive or dead, he has averaged a new book every four months for seventy-five years. Beyond this, some work by him is newly reprinted every week of every year in one or another format somewhere in the world. A great deal more about this author and his work can be found in THE MAX BRAND COMPANION (Greenwood Press, 1997) edited by Jon Tuska and Vicki Piekarski. His Website iswww.MaxBrandOnline.com.
