Scarlet Plume, Second Edition

by Frederick Manfred

  Silvers, Crydenwise, Maggie and Joe Utterback stood on guard, guns cocked.

  “Look at that smile all of a sudden on Pounce’s face,” Maggie Utterback muttered.

  “’Pears to be in high feather at what we’re doin’, all right,” Joe Utterback said.

  “Gassy pigs,” Maggie Utterback said. “Wish there was some way of taming them. Like dogs.”

  “The only way you can tame a Indian,” Silvers said, “is to fill him up with white blood. Like I been tryin’ to do with my woman Tinkling.”

  “Whoever thought the Indian had a soul must’ve surely lost all his buttons,” Joe Utterback said.

  Reverend Codman frowned.

  “Ha. Ever try to domesticate a wolf?” Crydenwise said. “Try it sometime and see what you get. I know. A wolf’ll snap at anything that comes near him even after he gets used to livin’ with you. Same thing goes fer a red devil.”

  Reverend Codman shook his head as if at wrongheaded children.

  “Preach, I tell you,” Silvers said, “someday you’ll larn that it was a mistake to be tenderhearted with the noble red savage.”

  Vikes finally had the horses hitched up. “Everybody ready?”

  “Let her go.”

  Vikes climbed up on the wagon seat. He snapped the reins. “Giddap. Colonel. Duke. Get!”

  The grays picked up the urgency in Vikes’s voice and their ears rose. They leaned into it and the wagon began to creak away.

  Pounce and Whitebone exchanged hand signals. Pounce’s group immediately formed a moving wall on the south side, Whitebone’s warriors came out of the grass and formed a moving line of mounted men on the north side.

  The caravan moved slowly toward the mission church. The church was still out of sight over the rise. Reverend Codman strode ahead alone, pale, bold nose in the lead. Those not riding walked behind the wagon.

  They had gone but a dozen rods when Mad Bear and his bunch of renegades came whooping out of the timber behind the cabin.

  “There they come!” Maggie Utterback yelled. “Shall we shoot?”

  “Hold your fire!” Tallak roared.

  There were at least thirty renegades. They were even more ragged than Pounce’s band. Some wore white-man breeches, some blankets, some feathers, some plug hats, all mostly stolen goods. Their yelling was wild, unearthly, more like the erratic crazy chirps of prairie dogs than war cries. Mad Bear was in the lead. He carried an old-time longbow. He was a squat, muscular devil some forty winters old. He had a naturally deep-set scowl and wild, rolling black eyes. He wore a grotesque necklace.

  Whitebone galloped over. He saluted Mad Bear.

  Mad Bear saw Whitebone’s raised left hand. Mad Bear signaled and his marauders held back. They danced in the grass, barely restrained, brandishing shotguns, knives, spears, bows and arrows.

  There was a further cry from the woods, higher, shriller. Out poured Mad Bear’s squaws, fat and thin both, all of them squalid. They made straight for the cabin. They clawed and squealed their way inside. In a moment all that had been left behind was in tatters—clothes, sheets, bedding, feathers, books, papers. Two heavy, snarling squaws fought over a jar of pickles. One of them became so wrought up that when she finally got control of the jar she whacked the other over the head with it. Pickles and glass and juice flew everywhere. Another pair of squaws fought over the dead wild swan with the broken neck; head and neck went one way, body and legs the other. In the midst of it all, one of Mad Bear’s braves came running up with a burning torch and set fire to the cabin.

  The faces of all the whites took on the hue of scorched clover.

  Judith almost fell down. She caught hold of Angela’s reaching hand from the wagon. She pinched Angela’s hand so hard, Angela whimpered. Again Judith had trouble controlling her bladder.

  Reverend Codman called from up front. “Courage now. Be of good faith. The Lord is with us and not with them.”

  Whitebone made another decisive gesture, and Mad Bear held up his hand again to hold his savages in line.

  Mavis let out a cry. Gasping, she pointed toward a new plume of smoke rising beyond the hill. “There goes my store and post office.”

  Houses, haystacks, fields of grain were blazing everywhere. The roaring red flames, the towering plumes of smoke, the demonic yells of the renegades, the hellish shrilling of the squaws, with behind and over it all a slowly gathering cloud bank full of snapping thunder, made it appear that Judgment Day was surely at hand at last. Terrible. Yet somehow grand and tremendous.

  “I think,” Tallak said, “I think we better keep one bullet over.”

  “The church!” Reverend Codman replied. “Keep your eyes on the house of God. It is our only hope and our only salvation.”

  A single stout plum tree stood halfway up the rise ahead. An Indian with ripgut tied to his head rose out of the grass beside it. It was one of Pounce’s men. He had skulked through a swale to head them off. After a moment other Indians, also camouflaged with ripgut tied to their heads, rose out of the prairie, blocking their path.

  Reverend Codman up front, to avoid setting off a shooting affair right then and there, veered slightly to the right, going along the edge of a wide slough. Rushes in the slough stood head high.

  The Indians were quick to spot the weakness and pushed the whites even further into the slough.

  The settlers pressed on. The ground became rough with potholes and grass tussocks. The wagon jolted heavily. Mrs. Christians groaned.

  Crydenwise played his cocked musket around. “Boys, I think we’ve been worked.”

  “No shooting now,” Reverend Codman warned over his shoulder. “Steady.”

  Theodosia said, “Remember, friends, sweet will be our rest in heaven when all this is finished.”

  Theodosia carried Johnnie high against her bosom. His little feet dangled with each step. She walked slim and stiff and looked straight ahead.

  Except for the slough directly ahead, the settlers were soon surrounded by the Indians. Whitebone and his soldiers’ lodge rode silently on the settlers’ left. Pounce and his dark, lowering savages walked mostly along on the right. Mad Bear and his renegades cut off all retreat behind them. Whitebone’s face was expressionless. Pounce was all smirks. Mad Bear frothed at the lips.

  Ted asked from the wagon, “Mama, will we eat when we get to the church?”

  “Yes, my darling son. All of us. After we’ve thanked the Lord for preserving us.”

  Tallak’s face was ashen white. He stalked along with high steps. “By gol, if it wasn’t for that damn Mad Bear and his devils, I think we could make it.”

  Silvers nodded. “They’re no good. No good to anybody. Even the Indians hate ’em.” Silvers swung his gun around menacingly to protect their rear. “You should hear some of the stories I’ve heard about ’em. Turn your stomach inside out.”

  “Ya, I suppose.”

  Theodosia said, “As long as the least of these have souls, we must do everything within our power to save them.”

  “Souls, hell. When they’re so rotten they’ve been known to sleep with wild animals fresh killed?”

  The old wagon lurched heavily. Then the reach cracked underneath. There was a sound of splintering wood.

  It could not go on.

  Reverend Codman turned and held up his hands.

  Vikes reined in his grays. “Whoa, there, whoa. Steady now.”

  It came over Joe Utterback and Crydenwise what they had to do. It was mole under or lose hair. They took one wild look around, then plunged toward the tall rushes in the center of the slough.

  A half dozen of Pounce’s braves tried to head them off. They were too late. Both whites vanished.

  Maggie Utterback was outraged. “That dirty skunk. That coward.” She swore. She spat after Joe. “Joe, come back here and fight like a man. Fat lot of good that knife’s gonna do me now, stuck in your belt.”

  No answer. Nor was there any stirring in the green rushes to indicate where the two benedicts might b
e lying secret.

  Mad Bear’s band rushed up close, brandishing guns, howling, yelling, dancing. Pounce’s bunch joined them. The din was unearthly. Sight of so many roaring wild Indians made the children on the wagon cry. Random shots whistled over the heads of the settlers.

  Reverend Codman approached Pounce with his raised left hand. “Brother in Christ, what is this? Did you not grant us safe passage to the Good Book Tepee? Is your tongue split?”

  Pounce’s heavy lips turned down at the corners.

  Reverend Codman said sternly, “It seems my brother’s word has as much worth as an empty corn shuck.”

  “It is the young braves who make the war.”

  “Is this what my eyes see?”

  “The young braves make me go to war.” Pounce rubbed his heavy belly in a circular motion. “But I will shoot up, over your heads. Do not fear.”

  Mad Bear danced up, black eyes rolling, mouth foaming. He roared, “The white man must die!” He had a big yellow circle painted around his right eye. It meant he was his band’s best shot. Close up, it could be seen that his grotesque necklace was made of fingers chopped from the hands of his victims. “The white man must die!”

  Reverend Codman continued to address Pounce, ignoring Mad Bear. “I have lived with you twenty winters. A whole generation has grown up since I set up the first Good Book Tepee in your village beside Skywater here. My wife and my children and I have lived with you as one of your own blood. We have never done you any harm. We have tried to show you the true path.” Reverend Codman pointed toward a field of burning corn just visible across the slough. “We have taught you how to plant corn in a furrow. We have given you plows. We have been your true friend at all times. Your grief was our grief, your joy was our joy. Why do you want to kill us?”

  “The white man must die!” Mad Bear continued to roar. “The white man has stolen our land. He has killed our sons. He has counted coup on our daughters in his dirty dog manner. He has defiled our wives.”

  Pounce said, “I can do nothing. The soldiers’ lodge has decided you must die. I cannot spare your life. Their orders are to kill all white men. You are a white man. I cannot save you.”

  Reverend Codman was finally beside himself with Christian rage. “Then you have lied to me.”

  “I promise to shoot up when the time comes.”

  “When . . . the . . . time . . . comes?”

  “I must shoot my gun a little or the soldiers’ lodge will punish me.”

  “You have lied to your Christian brother.”

  A blush blackened Pounce’s pocked face. “We are very poor. You have stolen our hunting grounds. You have stolen the graves of our fathers. You have stolen even the place for our own graves. We have no place to bury our dead.”

  “What!” Reverend Codman rose on his toes in the deep grass. “From this spot when I look north or east or south I can see neither house nor store built by the white man. It is only along the shore of Skywater where I see white-man dwellings.”

  “You take our money and give it to this trader”—Pounce threw Silvers a snarling look—“and he touches the pen to the books in a false manner and then he says we owe it all to him.”

  Silvers stuck his chin into it. “You goldurn lyin’ red nigger. Why, I’ve given you and your bunch credit for years so you could buy blankets and hoes and plows. That’s why you always owe me out of your annuities when they arrive. I wasn’t put into this world to feed and clothe you red devils out of my own pocket. And that’s why as far as I’m concerned you and your whitewashed bunch can go eat grass. And if you’re really as hungry as you pretend, you can go eat your own dung.”

  Pounce’s eyes whirled, flashing, black. Gone was all pretense that he ever was the white man’s friend.

  Reverend Codman turned on Silvers. “There is no need to swear. The Indian never swears.”

  “Never swears?” Silvers ejaculated.

  “Never. The worst he ever says is, ‘You are a dog.’ That is all.”

  “Never swears, does he?” Silvers was jumping mad. “Well, maybe he ain’t human enough to swear. Did you ever think on that, ha?”

  Pounce boiled. He turned toward his men. He held up his hand. He held it high until their howling fell away, until only the sound of their hate-thick breathing could be heard. He spoke in a fury. “Dakotas, attend! Before the sun sets across Skywater and the moon rises above the eastern rim of the earth, I will lead you against the stinking hairy-faces, against the fat men who have come to cheat us and take our lands away and put us in the pen for not helping them rob our women and children. Attend!”

  Mad Bear addressed his men in turn. “Attend, Dakotas! This is what I say. Are we to starve like the buffalo who has fallen into deep snow? Are we to let our blood freeze like the waters of a little stream in the middle of the Hard Moon? This is what I say. Let us make our mother red with the blood of the white man.”

  Whitebone, however, held his men back. He and his soldiers’ lodge meant to keep their word that the white settlers were to have safe passage to the church.

  One of the older squaws from Mad Bear’s bunch approached. She gave a low trill. The trill set off a wild roar in both Pounce’s and Mad Bear’s bands.

  Silvers said mockingly, “Well, Reverend, you’re a deep-read man; what do we do now?”

  Bitter disappointment smoked in Reverend Codman’s eyes. It hurt the good reverend grievously to see his Christian Indians go berserk, while the heathen Indians did not. The defection of Pounce and his men, the killing of Henry Christians, the burning and pillaging of the settler homes and fields meant the total collapse of a world he and Theodosia had spent most of their adult lives building. Both he and Theodosia had often tried to explain the sinful greed of the white man to the red man. Both he and Theodosia had time and again tried to explain the nature of Stone Age people to the church back east. After much labor he had somehow got a few of the savages to listen to him, had somehow raised funds to build a church. But all was now for naught. It had turned out just as cynics predicted.

  Judith recalled the time when she had once applauded Pounce. It was when she had first arrived. Services were being held in the new little clapboard church. Both whites and Pounce’s band were present. Toward the end of the sermon, Reverend Codman asked rhetorically, “Who has not stolen sometime somewhere?” All of a sudden, weeping, one after the other, Indian women got to their feet and began to confess. When finally even Pounce’s wife, Sunflower, rose to confess, Pounce broke in, growling, “Who knows how many times my wife has stolen? The Dakotas are a nation of thieves according to the white man’s laws, that I can see. I have said.” It had broken up the meeting.

  Reverend Codman tried once more to avoid bloodshed. Sweat stood out on his nose. He said to Pounce, “Brother, remember when you touched the pen to the paper and signed the peace treaty with the white man? Well, let us remember that peace.”

  Mad Bear brandished his longbow as if to cleave Reverend Codman in half with it. “Treaties of peace with the white man,” he raged, “are as worthless as ropes of sand.” He turned to his men. “Dakotas, hear me. It is time to harvest the blood. Our slain fathers cannot depart in peace!”

  A double-barreled shotgun went off, twice. The back of Reverend Codman’s head broke inward above his neck. After a moment the insides of his head tumbled out like yellow clay being pushed out of a hole by a pocket gopher. The face that was left slowly closed over in peace. Then the body of Reverend Codman toppled backward into the deep grass.

  A squaw lifted the high quavering trill of victory.

  Judith sucked, and sucked, and sucked for breath. The Indians were at last killing them. Actually.

  Theodosia, still carrying Johnnie, staggered, then cried aloud, “God is the refuge of his saints!”

  A single stroke of lightning flashed beyond the trees. Then came a drum of thunder. The forward sheeting edge of a cloud bank began to cover the sun. Brightness gradually dimmed off.

  The white wom
en gaggled in terror.

  Vikes tumbled down from the wagon seat and scrambled in between his grays. His eyes rolled wild, from side to side. His mouth hung open like a zigzag rectangle. He grabbed hold of the hames and hung on. He shook in such fear, the grays leaned away from him.

  The boy Ted jumped down from the wagon and ran to his mother and hugged her around the legs. Theodosia settled to her heels, her slat sunbonnet folding over Ted and Johnnie like spreading wings.

  Angela was next to leap off the wagon and run to her mother. Judith knelt in the grass. They threw their arms around each other and cried aloud in one voice.

  Maggie Utterback let go with her gun. The ball popped through the painted chest of a brave, felling him.

  Both Mad Bear and Pounce leaped for Silvers with a yell.

  Silvers fired from the hip. He missed them both.

  Pounce caught Silvers over the head with his war club, crunching his skull.

  Mad Bear let go with his longbow, whung! The arrow passed completely through Silvers’ heavy body and fell unbloodied on the ground behind him.

  Silvers teetered momentarily, caught between the smash of Pounce’s war club from behind and the force of Mad Bear’s arrow in front, falling neither one way nor the other. Silvers’ eyes closed over. At last Silvers’ legs caved in, parting at the knees, and he fell in a heap at their feet. Slowly he undulated over on his back.

  Pounce dove for him. He sunk his war club into Silvers’ brain once more, this time with such force it caused Silvers’ body to bound from the ground. In a flash Pounce had his knife out and scalped him. Mad Bear had his knife out too in a whip and scalped what was left of Silvers’ hair. Blood filmed over the round skinned skull. Red streamed into the green grass. Pounce and Mad Bear jumped up and began to dance in the grass, waving portions of Silvers’ hair in triumph. Both claimed first coup. Both their scalp yells quavered on the thick air.

  Tinkling, humped over, stared at the slain body of her white husband. With trembling fingertips she pressed the sides of her brown face. A low brokenhearted tremolo broke from her. Silvers had been her great man husband. It was hard to believe he was so suddenly dead. She stood keening a moment; then, ducking, she ran for the deep cattails in the slough, vanishing from view.