The White Indian

by Max Brand

  To the end, Red Hawk was like a scout in a hostile land, and therefore he moved about the village chiefly by night. For one thing, that enabled him to avoid the critical eyes and the loud, yelling voices of the boys. For another, he ran no chance of meeting Maisry or her father, who he did not wish to hurt with his silence, as he must do, by his vow.

  In the shop, on Sundays, he was alone and could work for himself. He spent much time and skill in forging a huge sixteen-inch knife for his own purposes.

  For the rest, he amused himself by swinging a fourteen-pound sledge backhand, making it come down toward his chin gently. But at the last moment the impetus of the heavy hammer could not be quite checked, and the apprentice had to duck his head out of the way. His strength had not yet mounted to the point that his master demanded of him, but it was near the mark. He was no longer the sleek creature that had come to Witherell from the plains. Hard labor, for endless hours every day, had changed his muscles to tendons, and his tendons to bone. His limbs were embraced, as it were, by the long, many-fingered hands of strength, and twenty times a day he tested and built himself by attempting the feat of the hammer.

  The spring turned to full summer. The burning days turned the hills brown. The fair, which this year was very late, filled the streets of Witherell with noise and people. Red Hawk, in the evenings, went through the town, walking slowly past lighted windows and open doors to get a glimpse of the life inside the saloons. He saw trappers who had come in from a distance, their faces sun-browned until they were almost as dark as Indians.

  He saw store clothes and deerskin. He saw wild, bearded faces, and faces equally wild that had been newly shaved for this one festival season of the year, so that a dark, sunburned mask seemed to cover the pale features above the mouth, with the eyes shining through. From the two dance halls he heard music swinging, and laughter, and the whispering or the trampling of many crowding feet. And at such moments an ache of loneliness would come over his heart.

  But now the time was not long. The twelve moons were completed. Tomorrow, if he chose, he could attempt the feat of the sledge-hammer before the eyes of Sam Calkins, and after that—well, there would be no scoundrel to trip him when he fought with Sam Calkins the second time.

  Chapter Twelve

  One evening, returning from the town, he had come almost to the door of the house when an obscure, sleepy night noise of a bird drifted to him from the nearest tree. He whirled and crouched to see more clearly. Then he stole through the darkness toward the tree, gasping: “Brother, is it you?”

  A shadow stepped out from behind the tree trunk. “It is I,” said the soft voice of Standing Bull.

  Under the double darkness of the tree, Red Hawk gripped the two hands of his friend. “Brother,” was all he could say. “Brother, brother . . . is it well with you?”

  “It is well with me,” said Standing Bull. “And it is well with you? Red Hawk is so happy among his people that he forgets the Cheyennes.”

  “There is no happiness except seeing you again,” said Red Hawk. “But why should I speak of myself? I want to know about the Cheyennes. Tell me about my people. Tell me of Spotted Antelope and Bitter Root.”

  “Spotted Antelope found twenty buffalo in a gully. One end of it was backed against a bank they could not climb. The other end he blocked with fire. He killed them all. His teepee is filled with robes and meat, and there is pemmican for years in their lodge. The weak and the sick are fed by your father’s hand . . . your mother keeps a strong fire burning all day long, and the meat pot is always full for the hungry.”

  “I am glad,” said Red Hawk.

  “They send messages to you, brother,” said the Cheyenne. “Return to them. Their spirits are empty. The days are like the quick steps of a young horse that hardly mark the grass . . . their days go by like swift, muddy waters. They wait in the lodge for you.”

  “And Lazy Wolf? Is he fortunate?” asked Red Hawk, after a silence.

  Standing Bull laughed a little, saying: “He has a new lodge. He has more horses. He has a strong wagon that carries his lodge and all that he possesses. The wheels are wide. They walk over the ground like a boat over water. Blue Bird drives the horses, and laughs.”

  “And all the tribe?” asked Red Hawk.

  “They are sad, a little,” said Standing Bull. “Wind Walker comes behind us as the shadow comes behind a cloud. He has killed four more of our young men.”

  “And the braves? And Dull Hatchet?” cried Red Hawk anxiously.

  “They have ridden by day and night. The horses are lean. A man can put his fist in the hollow between the hip bone and the small ribs. But still they cannot take Wind Walker. He blows away from them. If they come too close, his rifle kills the best man in the hunt, and then he rides on again.”

  Red Hawk groaned. “And now, for yourself?” he demanded.

  “I saw a Pawnee in a hollow draw, by a water hole,” said Standing Bull. “He was a Pawnee wolf. I called, and, as he turned, he died. I took his scalp. I saw two Blackfeet on the head of a mountain. As they rode down the mountainside, they came into an alley among the tall trees, and there they died. On one of them I counted the grand coup.”

  “Ah, friend,” cried Red Hawk enthusiastically, “there is no other like you in the tribe! Every year you are richer in coups . . . you are greater in honor. But what were you doing so near the setting sun? Why were you in the land of the Blackfeet, among the mountains? Were you taken there by some great vow?”

  “White Horse,” said the Cheyenne with a sigh. “I have followed him for nine months. Five horses died under me . . . and he is still free.”

  Red Hawk’s mind saw again the swift-driven herd of horses, like a flying lance, with the white stallion as the gleaming point of the spear. “I have dreamed of him, also,” he said.

  “Except in a dream, no man will ride him,” said the Cheyenne. “Brother, I drove him down a narrow gorge, and my heart was dying with joy because at the end of the gorge the ground fell away at a waterfall. He turned to charge back past me, but the swinging of my rawhide rope turned him again. He went galloping swiftly, and, when he came to the edge of the waterfall, he was neighing . . . he was calling death . . . he was leaping through the empty air into freedom.

  “I rode to the edge of the falls and looked down. I saw the great white horse spinning in the current below. He fought to climb the bank. The slippery mud threw him back. The water tore at him. I began to shout and sing for him. I offered a sacrifice of a good buffalo robe if the Underwater People would spare him . . . and a moment later he was galloping away across the grass of the lower valley. I saw that he was not for me, and I came back to my people. Except for that long hunt, I should have come to find you long before this. Now talk of yourself. Who are your friends?”

  “There is none,” said Red Hawk. “One man befriended me. I paid him with a gift of the gray horse. Then in a few days I went to work as white men do, in the shop of the blacksmith . . . the shaper of iron . . . the worker in metal . . . a medicine man who makes shoes for horses. He clipped off my hair and made me like a woman who mourns. I threw a knife and missed him. I went to fight him, and another man tripped me. I was beaten. I vowed to the spirits that I would live twelve moons in suffering, so that they would no longer be angry with me. I have been as silent as a beast, but perhaps the Listeners Above and Underground are pleased with me. Now the twelve moons of my vow have passed. If my prayer has been heard, tomorrow I shall kill the man who calls himself my master. Then I shall be free.” Red Hawk breathed fiercely.

  To this crowded recital, Standing Bull listened without a word, keeping silence for a long time after. At last he simply said: “And then?”

  “Then, if I go free, I shall not return to the Cheyennes until I have done some great deed.”

  “What deed, brother?”

  “Something that will make me appear as a man among the Cheyennes. When I can think what to do, I shall make a vow.” “Great vows make weary hearts,” sa
id Standing Bull. “But you fight a man tomorrow. Shall I help you to kill him? The honor and the first coup shall be yours, but I shall help.”

  “No,” said Red Hawk. “Because I have marked him every day since the first day. Like a hungry wolf, with my eyes I have eaten his body little by little, while he is still alive. Tomorrow I shall kill him or he will kill me. As for you, go over the hills. Ride up the length of Witherell Creek until you come to the fallen house and the white stone on the ground. Wait for me there for three days. If I have not come, I am dead or worse than dead . . . therefore go away and forget me.”

  He waited a long time before he had the answer. He waited so long that he asked: “How did you find me?”

  “I hunted the white camp with my eyes for three days before I found your place,” said Standing Bull. “Farewell, brother.”

  The eyes of Red Hawk had grown dim and the beat of his pulse filled his ears, so that he neither heard nor saw the going of his friend. He merely knew that he was alone. Afterward, he went to the bank of the creek, and for a long time watched the stars appear and disappear in the still water near the bank.

  He could not go back into Sam Calkins’s house because already he was killing that man in his mind. Therefore he sat down with his back to a tree, his face toward the east, and went to sleep with his chin on his breast.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In the dawn, a dog came out from the village and barked at Red Hawk. He stood up and lifted his arms toward the growing fire in the east. Minutes went slowly by him.

  His heart was comforted when he went to the blacksmith shop. There he sat cross-legged on the floor until Sam Calkins came out, bellowing: “You been gadding, have you? Well, it’s too damn’ late for any breakfast now. And what the hell you mean by not havin’ the fire going at this time of day?”

  Red Hawk got to his knees, laid his hands palm down on the ground, prayed for ten silent seconds, and rose to his feet. He went to the row of hammers that leaned against the wall, and picked out the fourteen-pound sledge. This he swayed ever so lightly through the air until, from the top of its rise, it came wavering slowly down, checked by all the rigid power in his arm. It touched his chin, gently. Then he threw it aside.

  “By the great horn spoon!” shouted Sam Calkins. “It ain’t possible! It ain’t . . .”

  Red Hawk went up to him. “Now,” said Red Hawk, “I have completed my vow to remain silent, and I must kill you. Are you ready?”

  “Ready? Hai, you drunk fool of a stinkin’ Injun!” shouted Sam Calkins, and he smote upward with all his might, rising on his toes to fling his weight into the blow.

  By the clearness with which he saw that massive fist coming, and by the cold calmness in his eyes and heart, Red Hawk knew that the spirits had heard his prayer. He stepped aside to let the danger jump past his face, then he caught Sam Calkins with the crook of his arm around the throat.

  When they went down, the bulk of Calkins fell on Red Hawk and knocked the wind out of his body, but the White Indian only locked his stranglehold the tighter. Calkins’s terrible hands gripped at him, at the lean, iron bar of his forearm, sunk in the bulging throat. But presently the hands made no further efforts, except to claw vaguely at the air, and at last they fell limply down.

  He is mine, said Red Hawk to his heart, and he is soon dead. But I have lived in his lodge . . . I have eaten his food. . . he has taught me his medicine.

  He slid from beneath the man’s limp weight, and sat on the edge of the tempering tub, looking down at the blacksmith’s black, swollen face. He began to dip his hand into the black water of the tub and throw it over the face and body of Sam Calkins, thoughtfully, for he was wondering why he could not kill the man. Also, he wondered whether or not the fulfilling of his vow did not demand the killing. But by the peace in his heart, he judged that all was well.

  Sam Calkins began to breathe audibly, dragging in his breath with a rattling noise. His face turned from dark purple to blue.

  The voice of Mrs. Calkins said suddenly: “Why didn’t you kill the great beast, Red Hawk? Nobody would’ve missed him.”

  He saw, then, that she was standing just inside the back door, and, by some leaning of the mind, he knew that she had been there from the first moment of the fight.

  “You wanna be paid off?” she said. “Well, I’ll fetch you the money. It’s a hundred and twenty dollars, because nary a penny has that fat swine paid you. But I’ll pay.”

  When she came back from the house, she put twelve golden eagles into Red Hawk’s hand.

  Her husband remained propped in a half-sitting posture, no longer rattling in his throat, but groaning with every breath he drew. His wife went to him and prodded him in the ribs with the toe of her boot.

  “Get up, pig,” she said. “Go and drool your blood over your work, and not on the ground. I’m glad to see the color of that blood in you. If ever you lift hand at me again, I’ll take a knife and see the same color, too. Get up, bully . . . beast . . . lounging, cowardly loafer. Get to your work, or there’ll be no feed for you out of my kitchen.”

  Red Hawk was amazed to see the hulk of the man rise, stagger, and go blindly toward the forge. It sickened Red Hawk to see him, so he went hastily out into the sun of the early morning. He could join Standing Bull now. But he must not come like a ragged beggar.

  He went to a store and bought a deerskin suit, new moccasins, a good rifle, plenty of ammunition, and an Indian saddle with the rawhide stretched so tightly over the crossed sticks of the pommel and cantle that the skin was semi-translucent.

  After that there still remained a great deal of money, so he went to the horse dealer at the end of the village and hunted through the herd in the great corral until he found what he wanted, a shaggy pony with a ewe neck, a roached back, and an eye of red fire. What Red Hawk wanted and bought, however, were not these traits. They were the four strong legs and the depth of the barrel, which indicated endurance. No white man in the world—not even a trapper from the plains—would have selected such a savage little beast, but Red Hawk knew the qualities that enable a horse to endure winter and summer and hard riding.

  He saddled the horse, rode the kinks out of it in a brisk ten minutes of pitching, and took it out of the village and up the creek. There he tethered it in some tall brush.

  There were two gifts of the white man that he had learned to appreciate during his residence in the town. One was a comb with smooth teeth, and the other was soap. Now he stripped to his skin, and began to scrub. There was grime and grease and soot here and there—the signs of the blacksmith shop—but he was not scrubbing this away. He was washing himself clean of all his days among the whites, of all the humiliation, the shame, the sorrow, and the foulness that comes out of a brooding mind.

  When he ended, he moved out of the flow of the current, and, stepping into the slack, still waters near the shore, he saw his image. The brown of the prairie years had gone from his body, and he was startled by the white flash of his skin as the water reflected it. He leaned over to study details.

  The Indian life, on foot or horseback, gives strength to the legs; the laboring white man clothes his arms and shoulders with muscles. And now Red Hawk saw that a thousand interlacing fingers embraced his shoulders and ribs and ran with long taperings down his arms. The swaying of the fourteen-pound sledge had put hard fists in the pit of his belly. He felt a sudden joy, as though he were looking at another man, a champion, say, ready to ride into battle on behalf of the Cheyennes.

  His face was much older, too. Pain had darkened his forehead and shadowed his eyes and stiffened his upper lip. He looked like an older and a wiser brother of that Red Hawk who had laughed and played among the Cheyennes.

  As if to wash that unhappy picture of himself from his mind, he dived suddenly into the creek, with nothing on his body except that sacred amulet, that medicine stone, the green beetle that hung from the leather thong about his neck.

  When he came out of the cold depths, he regarded the sun.
It would soon turn him bronze again. A few weeks of the old life and he would be no longer white as a fungus on the underside of a fallen tree, white as the belly of a frog that lives in the slime of a pool. Darkness bleaches all things, and it seemed to Red Hawk that all his days among the whites had been the darkness of eye and spirit.

  The sun now warmed him, and the twisting currents had washed his soul clean of the evil that had been around him. All Indian—let him be all Indian. Let all his thoughts be Indian thoughts, and let his body once more assume the dark, brown-red stain that was the fitting color for humanity.

  He kindled a little fire and dropped sweet grass on it. First of all, he purified his pieces of clothing and his weapons, one by one, and offered them with a gesture to the sun. Then he himself stood in the thin drift of the sacred smoke, and raised his hands and looked at the fiery lord of the universe until all was a crimson and green dazzle before his eyes. He even leaned close over the fire and filled his lungs with the smoke, for, since the soul of a man dwells inward, is it not best to purify the unseen flesh?

  He was certain that his prayer was heard, because when he stepped away, still breathing the mist from his nostrils, he was not seized by a fit of coughing. That was a very powerful sign that his medicine was good.

  He dressed carefully, and rejoiced most of all in the feel of the good strong moccasins that embraced his feet. He combed out his hair, last of all, and he was amazed to see how well it had grown, during this year. It was almost as though the filthy shears of the blacksmith never had despoiled his head.

  Having finished, he filled his pipe with more than the mere ceremonial gestures, and smoked the pipe out, watching the blue of the sky run down the stream.