by Max Brand
Some clothes hung from pegs. A rifle, with a powder horn hung to it, leaned in a corner beside a saddle that was suspended by one stirrup. Until one faced the fireplace, that was all that was to be seen, except for a small box or trunk piled with books.
But the fireplace itself was what took the major part of Red Hawk’s attention. Not with its size or the three small pots that stood beside its crane, but because from a rawhide thong across the front of the hearth, as high as a man’s head, there hung more than a score—yes, or even thirty—long black tresses of hair, with what seemed decaying rags of cloth attached to the bottoms of them. Whenever Wind Walker laid wood on his fire, whenever he bowed over the hearth to arrange the pots, he passed under the line of Cheyenne scalps.
Such trophies Red Hawk had seen by scores in the camp of the Cheyennes, and yet this sight sickened him, and not alone with grief for the losses of his own people.
He had noted these things with one swing of his eyes around the room, and he could give all of his heed now to the huge man who faced him. It seemed to him that he had never seen Wind Walker before, neither in the street of Witherell nor in the blacksmith shop of Sam Calkins. He seemed larger than ever, although he was stooped a little forward, in an attitude of readiness. His hair was not gray, but half white and half black, in streaks. In a sense, he seemed older, but his face was as timeless as a rock. Years could not take the strength from his great hands.
He was saying: “You’re the renegade white that can’t live with your own kind. You prefer the dog-eating Cheyennes.”
Red Hawk responded simply: “Is it for that reason that you hate my tribe, Wind Walker? Well, a fat dog makes a very good feast in the middle of winter, some men say. But I have never tasted the flesh. We have been through no great hungers during the time of my life.”
“Dog eaters or rat eaters, you’re all of a kind,” said Wind Walker harshly. “But how does it happen that one of the gang is willing to step out in the open and fight like a man? Can you tell me that?”
“There are many braves among the Cheyennes,” said Red Hawk, “who are not afraid to meet you.”
“You lie,” said Wind Walker. “They run away from me like antelope.”
Red Hawk threw up his head and flushed. “Why do you say the thing that is not true?” he demanded. “Here you see me, who never won a man’s name among the Cheyennes . . . and yet, even without a name, I am not afraid to face you, Wind Walker.”
“You lie again,” said Sabin. “You’re gray as a bone, in spite of the tan you wear. You’re white about the mouth with fear.”
Red Hawk sighed. “It is true that my heart is cold,” he said. “But nevertheless I am here.”
“You can’t lift my hair, Red Hawk,” said Sabin easily. “It’s not in the books that you can handle me. You’ll win no great name from me, my lad. You’ll get no more than a little inheritance of cold earth to stop your mouth and eyes for the rest of time. But, by the eternal God, I’ve half a mind to let you go. I hunt the red Cheyennes for the sake of a woman who they murdered, boy. There’s nothing in me against a poor, deluded fool of a white lad that they’ve raised according to their lights.”
“I know your squaw,” said Red Hawk.
“You know her? You were hardly born when she died.”
“She has spoken a word to me out of the ground nevertheless,” said Red Hawk.
White Horse neighed anxiously outside the door, and then thrust his magnificent head through the opening and looked after his master.
“Do you see?” said Red Hawk. “I sacrificed a good horse to her ghost, and her spirit gave me fortune so that I caught White Horse.”
“So it was you who laid that offal on her grave?” exclaimed Wind Walker, his voice rising to a thunder. He took a deep breath, suddenly, and controlled himself. “Now, my lad,” he said, “I think I understand you. You’ve come here to have it out with me, and so be able to ride back in a glory with White Horse and my scalp. But you can’t win. I’m not fool enough to fight with knives against a young wildcat . . . and you’d be a fool to fight me with guns, because I’ve lived with nothing but guns for twenty years. Do you hear me? Walk out the door, then, Red Hawk, and thank your spirits for the life that hasn’t leaked out through a hole in your skin. Be off with you, lad.”
“Give me the small gun and take the rifle for yourself. We shall fight like that,” said Red Hawk.
“D’you like the rifle better?” asked Wind Walker. “Take it, then.”
The stallion whinnied as Red Hawk, without waiting for a second invitation, hurried to the wall and caught up the rifle.
Sabin at the same time picked the revolver from the table. He said: “Keep that rifle no lower than at the ready. If you begin to drop the muzzle at me till we’ve had a signal, I’ll split your skull wide open between your blue eyes, Red Hawk. But I’ll give you a last chance. I tell you now that at a range like this, I can’t miss you. If we fight, you’re dead. Lad, get out of the house and go back to the tribe. There are still enough red Cheyennes left for me.”
“I have prayed to the Listeners Above and the Underground Listeners,” said Red Hawk. “If they give me a victory, it is very well . . . but, if I die, I am only leaving a dark life.”
“Damn the Listeners Above and Underground, when I have a loaded gun in my hand,” said Marshall Sabin. “There’s your horse, flickering his nostrils and ready to whinny again. There’s the signal for us to fire, when he neighs. And God help your rotten young soul.”
They faced one another in silence, the rifle at the ready, the revolver hanging straight down in Sabin’s hand. It seemed to Red Hawk that Wind Walker was leaning a little farther forward, peering as though he saw in the face of Red Hawk a familiar landscape.
Then Red Hawk felt, rather than heard, the vibrating neigh of the stallion, and he jerked up the butt of the rifle to fire. He saw the revolver flash to a level, the muzzle of it tipped up as it spat fire, and the red streak of the flame seemed to explode through his whole brain, followed by darkness.
He found himself falling. The floor rushed up against his eyes and struck his entire body, heavily. And as he lay still, he wondered that he was not dead. It was as though the blow of a club and the stroke of a knife had fallen upon his head at the same instant. The keen pain burned into the bone of his skull and fought against the darkness that had swooped down on his brain.
Wind Walker was coming. He had to rise and face death. He had to bring life back into his limbs for a final struggle. He saw the great moccasins striding toward him. He could see the powerful legs as high as the bulge of the calves. He saw the spread of the toes inside the thin leather that covered them. And suddenly it came to him that the gods of the white man must love this warrior; they had entrusted victory in his hands.
The big feet paused near him. He knew that the monster was bending above him. Red Hawk gathered himself through a tenth part of a second for the final effort. Then he thrust himself up with his left hand. His right caught up the gleaming length of his knife, and he drove it right at the breast of Wind Walker.
He had one glimpse of hope. Then, with a side-sweep of his revolver, Wind Walker struck the knife out of Red Hawk’s grasp. It hurtled far away, and clanged against the wall. It fell back with a shiver of steel against the floor.
Still the final bullet did not crunch through Red Hawk’s body and bones. He got to his feet, swaying. Death was right there before him, a glimmering light on the barrel of the revolver. It would strike him in the belly through the tender flesh. He could see that from one eye; the other was blinded with the blood that flowed from the wound in his scalp. He folded his arms and stood fast, as a helpless man should do, facing death with dignity. He hoped that when the gun crashed, he would not fall writhing on the floor. He prayed that no screams of agony would tear through his locked teeth.
“You sneaking Cheyenne snake!” shouted Wind Walker, and stepped in with all his weight behind a driving fist. The blow caught Red Hawk well on
the side of the chin, and hurled him sidelong into a second darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Red Hawk awakened with the cold of wind and water in his face, for he lay in grass wet with dew, and a breeze chilled him. He sat up. The black, squat outline of Wind Walker’s house stood before him, thrusting its sharp back up among the stars. White Horse stood over him without grazing, and the gleam of something above the top of the grass proved to be his own long knife, which had been thrust into the ground beside him. Yet it was no dream that he had confronted Wind Walker in his own lodge, for, when he felt a fiery thrust of pain through his head and lifted his hand, he found that the entire side of his head was bathed with blood.
Gradually exploring with the tips of his fingers, he could understand. The bullet from Wind Walker’s gun had not driven through his head between the eyes. It had merely cut the flesh across his temple, and so glanced back along his skull, with impact enough to knock him down. Then he remembered what had followed. Far more strange than all else was the fact that Wind Walker had spared a Cheyenne life and had flung the limp body on the grass outside his lodge. Yet one more scalp could have hung to dry at his fire, and for an extra prize, here was White Horse to carry the great warrior to his next battles.
There was a whirling of dark mist before Red Hawk’s eyes as he stood up and then mounted the stallion. This thing had befallen him, but he was still utterly incredulous.
He rode up to the edge of the hollow. When he looked back, the thought of Wind Walker rose in his mind like a shadowy giant against the stars. The slayer somehow seemed far more terrible because for once he had chosen to be merciful.
There was no need for haste as he traveled out from Witherell. At the grave of Wind Walker’s squaw he stopped and listened in vain for the voice that had sounded in his mind before. Then, slowly, he moved back across the plain, pausing for several days at a pool where he could manage to spear fish or knock them out of the water with the most clumsy of devices.
When he reached the camp of the Cheyennes, the wound across the side of his head had closed. He so gauged his approach that he would not enter the camp until dark. Therefore he rode White Horse at a walk, when he was still at a considerable distance, waiting for the sun to sink.
But he had forgotten how at this season of the year the boys from the camp would be sure to ride far afield, like war scouts, and now they stormed out at him from behind a hillock, a yelling swarm, their little ponies at full strain, the turf hurtling above their heads in lumps, like dark birds dancing in the air.
They came close up to him, while with voice and hand he was barely able to keep the stallion from bolting. One by one, the screeching youngsters flashed past him, each making a motion as if to shoot with the bow or strike with the club as he darted past Red Hawk.
Half of that stream of wild young Cheyennes then poured away toward the camp to give the tidings; the other half whirled in a vast pool around Red Hawk. White Horse could hardly go forward through them. The rank, fresh smell of the bruised grass was in the nostrils of Red Hawk, and the yelling voices enchanted his ears. They were calling him the victor, the champion, the conqueror, the maker of strong medicine. They said that he had gone faster than the lightning could spring, to capture White Horse. They yelled and screeched their praises while they raced their horses. But all of this mattered little or nothing to him. Indian boys are unhampered spirits, but what would their fathers and their older brothers do about the returning renegade who had not dared to endure the blood sacrifice?
He had his answer in the red heart of the sunset time, as he drew near to the camp and saw a stream of warriors, skirted around by a swarm of boys as they came galloping out toward him. At the head of all, making his pony race at full speed, was Standing Bull. Red Hawk knew him by the war cry that he sounded, and understood by that token that neither Dull Hatchet nor Running Elk had chosen to join in the reception. Neither the war chief nor the medicine man had come, for, if either of them had been present, the rest of the tribe would have held back. The most important faces had been turned away from him, but there was solace in those that remained. For to the right and left of Standing Bull, and far behind him, he could mark from a distance the braves of great and respected importance. He could tell them by their headdresses, by the horses that he had not forgotten. And as they came closer, he could distinguish their shouts, and, last of all, their faces.
If the leaders of the Cheyennes had not come out to him, the rank and file of the warriors had not hesitated on that account. Standing Bull, with one arm raised in welcome and in salute, made a swift circle around White Horse, the war yell screeching out of his throat until White Horse in a frenzy reared and spun about on his hind legs.
At that sight all the other Cheyennes shouted and came pouring in.
Standing Bull took charge. He went ahead of his friend and ordered the circle to widen. He struck at horses with his whip to make them move. He thundered commands to clear the way. He asked those braves if they were locusts, crawling over one another to get to some uneaten green. Nevertheless, the warriors rushed enthusiastically close to the stallion, until White Horse suddenly took matters into his own control by making a furious charge, first to the right and then to the left, ready with his teeth and his hoofs to clear room.
With laughter and shouting, the Cheyennes dodged the charges. So the troupe passed into the camp.
On the verge of the camp was Lazy Wolf, smoking a short-stemmed pipe such as the whites prefer, and waving a staff in greeting. Blue Bird was behind her father, waving, laughing, and all the other women of the camp, so it seemed, were hurrying in crowds, shouting and milling together.
Above all the other outcries Red Hawk could hear a steady chant that never ended as one voice after another cried: “White Horse! White Horse!” Were they welcoming him, or only the medicine horse?
He had no difficulty in finding the lodge of Spotted Antelope. The crowd had formed a living alley, fencing in the way to the natural goal of his homecoming, and now, at the end of it, he saw the lodge of his foster father. The entrance flap was open, but no one stood in front of the teepee, a sure sign that he was waited for within. So he rode on through the tumult, keeping his eyes straight before him, as in duty bound, and pretending to see no one.
When he dismounted and stepped inside the lodge, White Horse crowded his head and shoulders after him through the entrance flap. And then Red Hawk saw Spotted Antelope, looking aged and drawn and gray of skin. But there was no sign of Bitter Root, and by that he knew well that she had died.
Afterward, he was alone with his father as much as could be, since White Horse would not leave his place in the entrance and the feet of men and women and children could be seen thronging outside the lodge to view the great stallion close up. Against the flood of noise that still poured around the teepee the two men spoke at intervals, with long silences between. The flame of the central fire threw up waverings of light across the neatly sewn skins of the lodge. These skins were newly tanned, and yet Red Hawk was told that Bitter Root had died almost two years before.
There was an explanation when Bending Willow, the wife of Standing Bull, entered the lodge carrying a pot from the mouth of which streamed the savors and steam of broiled buffalo meat. She placed the pot over the fire, and went out, without speech.
“She?” said Red Hawk, lifting his finger.
“She has been like a daughter in my lodge,” said the old man. “And Standing Bull has been as a son. Will you eat?”
“I am fasting,” said Red Hawk.
“Have you made a vow?” asked the old man.
“I am about to make one,” said Red Hawk. He pointed to a good-size sack, the top of which was open and appeared to be filled with brilliant beads of all colors. Near the sack a full dozen of heavy steel axe heads lay on a buffalo robe, and in another open box there was a great quantity of knives of all sorts and sizes. There were four fine repeating rifles lying on their cases, a roll of lead with which
to cast bullets, a small keg of powder, two sets of snowshoes of the finest Indian make, some gaudy woolen blankets, sacks of sugar, of flour, of coffee, of tea. In fact, as Red Hawk looked at this wealth, it seemed to him that everything that the Indian heart could desire was here represented.
“Father, you are rich!” he cried.
“When I heard that White Horse was coming,” answered the old man, “I laid out all these things, for they are gifts sent to my lodge by the great chief of the whites, who was saved, with all his people, by my son. I have given away a great deal, but still there is enough left for half the camp . . . and in my herd are the six strong pack mules. These are the things that come to a man who has for a son a great warrior and medicine man.”
This compliment was the only recognition that the old man paid to the travels and the achievements of Red Hawk. He was more interested in showing a large painted robe that was spread at the back of his lodge, for this was a gift from the Blackfeet, he said. It had come from a great distance, and it was the medicine of a far-away people, therefore it ought to bring luck in that teepee.
“Now tell me every step that White Horse made across the plains and through the mountains,” commanded the old man. He leaned back and stretched out his hands, not toward the fire but toward the warmth and brightness of the glory of his foster son. “But first,” he said, “tell me what made the wound that is on your head.”
“Wind Walker,” said Red Hawk.
The Cheyenne was old, but now he leaped to his feet with a sudden agility. “Wind Walker!” he cried, and clapped a hand over his gaping mouth.
“Yes,” said Red Hawk. “He fought with me. His bullet knocked me down, and afterward he could have taken my life, but he threw me outside his lodge.”
