by Max Brand
Red Hawk had to remember that, unless they took this advantage, now that they had won it, the enemy would be perfectly ready to slaughter them. The whole fame and name of Wind Walker rested on the fact that he fought Indians by the use of Indian methods. Only the direct interposition of Sweet Medicine had induced him to spare Red Hawk’s life on that other day.
Another thing, however, suddenly began to beat in Red Hawk’s temples. That was the memory of how Spotted Antelope had died, upon his lips a warning to his foster son never to harm Wind Walker. Some dread secret had been in the Cheyenne’s throat, but death had choked it.
“Quick,” whispered the war chief.
Red Hawk raised himself on both elbows and settled the butt of his rifle against his right shoulder. Leaning his head to the right, he closed his left eye. Thus he looked down the sights over the rim of the rock, and saw beneath him the three men.
They had come to that bit of unsheltered ground. Off to their left was a deep draw, along its edge a scattering of brush. This would have given them cover, but their caution would have been more than human had they wormed their way through that jagged cut instead of taking the upper ground.
Even so, it was plain that the two Pawnees did not like this business of crossing open ground. Wind Walker’s lofty, stately form strode along as though he had no fear of bullets, but the two Indians skulked forward, constantly edging toward the right, to get to cover again more quickly. They were both to the right of Wind Walker, for which reason Dull Hatchet corrected his directions rapidly, saying: “Take the one nearest the side of the ravine, Red Hawk.”
Red Hawk had the figure in his sights, an easy, pointblank shot. He could not miss, although for his rifle he had to allow of a bit of driftage to the left. He made that correction, but he felt that he wanted more time. He felt, somehow, that he had been hurried into this.
Then the man he covered looked up suddenly, froze in place, and the sun flashed on his arm as he pointed.
Red Hawk squeezed the trigger at the same instant. The rifles on either side of him roared in a double report even before his own weapon spoke. His Pawnee bounded into the air, turning around and around like a dancer. He landed in a heap, his arms sprawling out to either side, and lay still. Off to his left, the other Pawnee had fallen.
But Wind Walker had bounded to one side as the bullet struck him—or so it seemed—and had been caught in the brush at the verge of the draw. His broad hat could be seen there, at least.
Standing Bull’s yell sounded far away in the ears of Red Hawk. “Sweet Medicine steadied our rifles!” he was shouting joyfully.
“I go to climb the higher rock behind us,” Dull Hatchet said. “From that place I can look farther and see if any other men are coming.” He went back swiftly, calling over his shoulder the suggestion that the other two put at least one more bullet into each of the fallen men. Standing Bull hardly needed that cautioning. He had already loaded, well before Red Hawk.
“This for Wind Walker,” he said as he fired, and Red Hawk distinctly saw the hat in the brush move. “Take your own man again!” exclaimed Standing Bull.
“He is dead,” said Red Hawk. Then he saw the second Pawnee, the one that Standing Bull had struck down in the first place, push himself up into a sitting posture and try to crawl away. But it seemed as though his legs were glued to the ground.
“I have him!” shouted Standing Bull, reloading again with flying hands.
“Let him be,” said Red Hawk. “Look. He is dying again. He is singing the death song, brother.”
For up from the ravine came the small, wavering sound of the chant. By the pauses in it, it seemed to Red Hawk that he could count the pulses of agony, the dragging steps by which life departed from the wounded man.
“Let him die before his song is finished,” said Standing Bull, and leveled his rifle once more.
Red Hawk grasped his arm. “Let him die in peace,” he urged. “If the Listeners Above wish to hear him, let him finish his song.”
Standing Bull turned a convulsed face. “Are you a woman, still?” he exclaimed. But turning suddenly aside, he took a fresh aim, and fired again at the broad hat that was stuck in the brush at the side of the draw beneath them.
To Red Hawk’s amazement, that hat turned to the side, revealing the fact that there was no head beneath it, and then it dropped quite out of view.
Standing Bull grunted with alarm. “Suppose he was not killed, brother,” he said. “Suppose he leaped into the draw when the rifles sounded, and that Dull Hatchet missed him. Suppose nothing happened to him, except that his hat was stuck there in the brush?”
Red Hawk stared back at his friend. “Then,” he said, “Wind Walker might still be alive and running up that draw or down it, unseen by us and ready to fire?”
Standing Bull nodded, and the two looked gloomily at one another.
“We must go back and tell Dull Hatchet,” said Standing Bull, and, rising, they hurried back to the rear of that shoulder of rock. Above them rose the turrets another fifty feet or more.
“Do you hear? Dull Hatchet!” called Standing Bull.
“I hear. I hear,” said Dull Hatchet. “There are no others in sight. We may climb down to the valley now. Why have you left that Pawnee singing?”
“Because the heart of Red Hawk turned weak,” said Standing Bull contemptuously.
It seemed, suddenly, that he had ceased to be the old friend Red Hawk had always known. Anger thickened his voice.
Still the chant of the dying man slowly mounted upward from the floor of the ravine.
“Wind Walker’s hat has been knocked out of the brush by two bullets,” said Standing Bull. “Perhaps he was not hurt at all, but only left his hat behind. Or perhaps he is lying dead in the bottom of the draw.”
There was an exclamation from Dull Hatchet. “There is a bullet through his heart,” he vowed, “unless the spirits turned it aside from his flesh. Come, come. We must go down. . . .”
His voice changed and rang out suddenly on a note of astonishment and fear. He had been looking down at them through an embrasure in the upper rocks. Now, as he whirled about, Red Hawk had the briefest glimpse of another figure with long gray hair blown over the shoulders, rushing in upon the Cheyenne chief.
In an instant they were out of sight.
“Wind Walker,” groaned Standing Bull, and began to bound up the rock like a mountain goat.
Chapter Thirty-Five
It seemed to Red Hawk that two mighty spirits of the upper air were storming against each other high above his head, as he climbed. When he thought of the colossal bulk of Dull Hatchet and his fearless heart, he could not prefigure defeat for the Cheyenne. Yet when he thought of the charging form of Wind Walker, he could no more dream that that man was liable to fail.
With his loaded rifle under his arm, the climbing was slower for him than for Standing Bull, who had thrown down his empty gun and rushed like a hero straight for the battle, with only a knife for a weapon. Still he was not far behind. And he had no fear.
That was why the foot of Red Hawk was lightened as he climbed the rock. He was close to the top, with the naked, muscular legs of Standing Bull flashing above him, when he saw the huge bulk of Dull Hatchet forced back to the verge of the upper platform. There he and Wind Walker whirled for an instant, before the Cheyenne lurched suddenly outward, with a frightful yell. The shadow of his falling body rushed over Red Hawk. As he drew himself up onto the level of the rocks above, he heard the heavy fall below him, and the crunching sound of the breaking bones.
He had even time to wonder at the ability of Wind Walker—a walker of the wind, indeed, since he had been able to travel out of the draw and climb so quickly to take his enemies in the rear.
Then, as he got to his feet with his rifle, Red Hawk saw Standing Bull leap in with his knife at the enemy, regardless of the jagged fragment of stone that Wind Walker swayed in his hand. The stone moved as if for a blow; Standing Bull swerved to the side and ran in, a
nd then the ruin descended fairly on his head. He went down without a cry, his great body flashing in the sun as he stretched out and lay still.
With some extra sense, though hardly with his eyes, Red Hawk saw this, for his real vision he was using to look down the sights of his rifle at the body of Wind Walker. The giant hesitated for an instant as though he knew that death was inescapable. Then, with a shout, although his hands were empty, he rushed straight forward to receive the bullet.
A red glory of admiration and wonder flowered in the brain of the younger man as he saw the veteran come in at him. He remembered, too, how he had once fallen before the gun of this hero—and had been spared. He could feel, in memory, the red-hot finger of the bullet that ripped the flesh along his head. He cast his rifle aside, and it fell with a loud clangor on the rocks.
For if Sweet Medicine was in fact his protector, what did Red Hawk need of rifles? His own hands would be enough. He gave a wild yell and sprang to meet the charge, even forgetting the great knife in his belt as he reached for the enemy. His hands grasped at a bulk that seemed to have ribs of rock. And as he dodged to the side, Wind Walker’s grasp ripped the deerskin shirt from his back and flung him headlong, half stunned.
All that he knew was that a hand had grasped his long hair, and that he had been half raised so that his neck was bent back over the knee of the giant. One effort of that tremendous arm would shatter his spine. Against the flaring sunlight of the sky he saw the terrible face of Marshall Sabin, and out of the distance he heard the failing voice of the Pawnee raised in the death chant.
“Here,” said Wind Walker. “Here, you damned white-skinned red-hearted murderer of a Cheyenne. Tell me where you got this, and perhaps you’ll have two minutes more to live, then you can sing your own death song. Do you hear? Where did you get it?” As he spoke he lifted the green amulet.
Red Hawk’s voice was strangled in his throat. Yet even now, in the whirling of his mind, he had time to wonder how even Sweet Medicine could save him. But he said: “It has always been around my neck, ever since I was a small boy.”
Red Hawk found himself lifted to his feet. One of Wind Walker’s vast hands still grasped him by the hair, and the other pointed over the edge of the rock.
“Dull Hatchet!” exclaimed the Wind Walker thickly. “That murdering devil of a Cheyenne butcher . . . he is with you today. Is it his section of the tribe that you’ve lived with ever since you can remember?”
“Yes,” said Red Hawk.
Wind Walker’s hands gripped him suddenly by the elbows, freezing every nerve in his arms to numbness.
“I’m going mad!” gasped Marshall Sabin. “God keep my brain clear. Lad, are you half Indian and half white? Was either your father or mother a Cheyenne?”
“No,” said Red Hawk. He looked into the working face of the Wind Walker, and suddenly shuddered from head to foot.
“How long have you been with them? How long have you been with the tribe? Do you know that?”
“Seventeen . . . eighteen years,” said Red Hawk.
Wind Walker’s terrible hands released him suddenly. Red Hawk could have snatched out the long knife at his belt and buried it in the body of the white man at that moment, but he heard the giant cry: “Remember exactly . . . for God’s sake! Was it eighteen years ago? Was it?”
“It was . . . exactly eighteen years.” Red Hawk nodded. “I have heard them name the year when I was brought to the tribe. Spotted Antelope . . .”
The pointing, rigid arm of Wind Walker stopped him, the wild eyes that searched his face. “You once sacrificed a horse on the grave of my dead wife, boy,” said Marshall Sabin. “Why did you do that?”
“Because I heard a voice come out of her grave, one day a long time ago.”
“What voice? In the name of God, are you going to give me your damned Indian nonsense and spirit chatter now? What did the voice out of the grave say to you?”
“Only one word. It was as if I had remembered it out of some dim past. ‘Rusty,’ it said. I do not know why.”
When a bullet drives straight through the heart, the flesh of the body quivers once and is quiet, and the breath may swell the throat and part the lips once without a sound coming. It seemed to Red Hawk that his last word had so struck through the body of Marshall Sabin and left him, in a moment, still and calm.
His man-slaying hand stretched toward Red Hawk with the palm turned up. “Rusty,” said such a voice as Red Hawk never had heard before, “can you see with my eyes? It was your mother’s name for you, and you are my son.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The death song of the Pawnee in the lower ravine had ended by now. Speech was rising with happiness and sorrow out of Rusty Sabin’s throat, and still he listened to the voice of his father.
Standing Bull, however, stirred suddenly and rose. The fallen rifle was instantly in Marshall Sabin’s hands, but Rusty said to him—“This is my friend.”—and instantly the mouth of the rifle pointed to the ground.
Somehow they got Standing Bull down the cliff to the ravine and to the horses, where with water from the water bags they washed his wound and bound up his head. He had heard the story, by that time, and, when he had recovered from his astonishment enough to take his hand from his mouth, he said: “Red Hawk, it is the work of Sweet Medicine. Our rifles were charmed. Our knives had not edges to strike into the flesh of Wind Walker. Therefore he was turned into your father so that he may do us no more harm. What will you do?”
“I cannot take my father among the Cheyennes. Therefore I must go with him among the whites,” said Red Hawk. “Dull Hatchet lies dead, but he died on the warpath, as a good man should. You can count two coups, and you can tell the tribe that you have fought hand to hand with Wind Walker. It is not a bad journey for you.”
“Ah-hai!” said Standing Bull. “The tribe has lost the war chief, and I have lost my friend. Do you tell me nevertheless to be happy? Go back with me to our people, Red Hawk,” he pleaded. “Tell them the truth. Otherwise, if I stand up among them and speak, they will never forget that I went out on the warpath with Dull Hatchet and with the friend of Sweet Medicine. They will never forgive me. Bad luck will be seen where my shadow falls. Come back with me, and say farewell to the tribe, if you must go.”
Even Wind Walker could understand the necessity for that journey, and so they headed slowly out of the hills and across the plains, letting the horses gather strength, and dressing the wound of Standing Bull every day so that only the scar remained when he reached the camp.
Outside the camp, Marshall Sabin took the hand of his son and said: “Is it safe for you to go in? The treacherous red devils may forget what you’ve been to them the moment they learn you’re my son. They may cut your throat for you.”
Rusty Sabin looked back into that grim face and answered very gravely: “My skin is white, and you are my father . . . but all my life the Cheyennes are my people.”
Marshall Sabin’s big head wagged from side to side in wonder. He never would understand, Rusty could see.
Through the twilight, Red Hawk rode out of the hills with Standing Bull, and into the noise of the camp. He went swiftly, secretly, to his lodge, leaving Standing Bull to spread the news. And while Red Hawk stripped himself to the breechclout and painted himself blue and yellow, he heard the evening commotion as it swept in waves through the camp. Far away, he heard the yell of the mourning women begin; those were the squaws of Dull Hatchet, lamenting their dead. He took special care, finally, in painting all across his breast the likeness of a flying owl, in red.
He walked out to the great fire, stalking along behind his friend. Old Hopping Bird came out of a waiting cluster of people and threw herself down before him. Her grandson was dying, she said, unless help came to him from the Sky People. They had the boy there in a litter, and by the light of a torch Red Hawk could see the starved and wasted face. They pulled back the buffalo robe and showed the whole body, thin as a corpse that has dried for months under a parching s
un. The lad was fourteen, and the frightful scars of the initiation had never healed perfectly. They stood up like red fists.
The poor lad was Gray Eagle, a famous name given to him by common assent of the tribe, not because he had as yet been able to do anything on the warpath, but because the glory of his father must be kept in mind by every Cheyenne.
Gray Eagle’s glazed eyes now shone with sudden hope. He smiled and lifted an uncertain hand toward the friend of Sweet Medicine. Red Hawk dropped to his knees; he laid his hands on the great knotted scars of the initiation. Then he felt something go out of him; he could feel virtue flowing down his arms and through his hands. Perhaps this would be his last deed among the Cheyennes. Words came slowly from his lips: “Sweet Medicine is near me. I feel his breathing. His strength goes through me into the body of Gray Eagle. Peace shall enter Gray Eagle’s veins. Strength shall flow into him. He shall live.”
Hopping Bird gave a cry of joy. Red Hawk stood up. And he heard the boy muttering: “It is true. I shall live. I felt the life come into me when I heard the voice of the medicine man.”
Red Hawk said: “What have you done for him, Hopping Bird?”
“All that the wise men advised. He has had a fever. We have given him sweat baths twice a day. We have carried him down and plunged him in the river afterward, when he was too weak to walk. Still he grows weaker.”
Red Hawk thought of the stifling steam of the sweat house and sighed. “Sweet Medicine has entered his body,” he said. “Give him no more baths. Let him be very quiet. Hush the children near the teepee. Give him buffalo tongues and boiled corn . . . a little every day. In the morning and the evening, sing a chant to Sweet Medicine. You need not lift your voice very high . . . you will be heard.”
Then he went away, and behind him he heard the people laughing with joy. And he heard the voice of the boy saying again: “I shall live. I feel the strength in me.”
