Frontier Feud

by Max Brand

  We shall meet again. Forgive me for going without speaking to you face to face, but I was afraid that the resolve would go out of me if we talked together.

  Affectionately,

  Your Father

  When Rusty had read this letter, he crushed the paper together between his hands.

  He had had two fathers in his life—Spotted Antelope, among the Cheyennes, whom he had first shamed so terribly and then honored so greatly, and then his own white father. But Spotted Antelope was dead; and Marshall Sabin was gone now. And half of Rusty’s world seemed suddenly to have shrunk away from him. He wanted to sit by the hearth and wail like a woman. Instead, he wrapped himself in a blanket and began to sway back and forth, for his grief was choking him.

  When he looked up again, the thick of the night was around him. His heart seemed to fill his breast so that there was no space for air in his lungs.

  He went out to the corral fence and called, softly, a single word. The White Horse came like a glorious ghost through the starlight, whinnying in a voice no louder than that of his master. Through the perils of many a dangerous trail, the stallion had learned the soft note which answers human speech. When he saw Rusty’s head, bowed on the top bar of the fence, the horse pulled the blanket away and snuffed at the long hair. He even nibbled at it, and then fled wildly across the corral.

  Since he was not followed even by a rebuke, it began to be clear that the master was not bent on a game, so the White Horse came stealthily back, lifted his head, and stared about him, pricking ears as keen as the ears of wolf, and scenting the air. Since it seemed that no danger was near, he pressed his soft, damp muzzle against the side of Rusty’s face and pushed impatiently up, trying to lift the fallen head. And at last, with a sigh, Rusty turned away from the corral, covered his head again, and left the place.

  Even the White Horse could give him no comfort. Even the White Horse, calling eagerly after him, could not make him turn again, for he wanted to ease his heart. Therefore, he went to the Lester house.

  Music drifted out of it as he came near. When he came to the door of the big cabin, which was open to the warm airs of the night, he was able to see Major Marston playing a guitar; it was the major’s voice that drawled through the melancholy Negro songs. The Lesters sat about enjoying the melody, Maisry with her head back and her eyes fixed on starry distances.

  Rusty waited until one of the songs had ended. Then he stepped across the threshold, one hand raised in a silent greeting.

  “Great heavens, an Indian!” cried Mrs. Lester.

  “Hush, Martha. It’s Rusty,” said Richard Lester, jumping up from his chair.

  Already he was a changed man. Color was coming back into his face, and brightness into his eyes. The mild Southern climate was giving his starved body a chance to regain strength.

  “Rusty?” exclaimed Mrs. Lester. “Then why don’t you say something?—Rusty, what’s the matter with you?”

  “I think I understand,” said the major, maliciously. “Among the Indians, you know, a brave must not speak to his mother-in-law, if he can avoid it.”

  Rusty sat down against the wall, just inside the doorway. He sat cross-legged, his robe pulled in a close hood over his head, which was bowed. Instantly Maisry was on one knee beside him.

  “What is it, Rusty?” she pleaded. “Tell me what’s happened? Is it something to the White Horse?”

  “Has something gone wrong in the blacksmith shop?” asked the major, carelessly.

  Rusty, still without speaking, held out the letter from his father.

  Maisry read it aloud, exclaiming in her soft voice, now and again.

  “Back to the Pawnees?” cried Mrs. Lester, her face wrinkling in disgust. “Back to those thieves and murderers? What can the man be thinking of? Is the whole Sabin family more Indian than white, Rusty? Great heavens, will your own children have the same insane spirit?”

  “The blood of adventure, you know!” said Major Marston.

  Aside, he made a deprecatory gesture to Mrs. Lester.

  She felt that this was support.

  “Do sit on a chair, at least,” she urged Rusty sharply. “You’ll have to begin to learn civilized customs.”

  “Please be quiet for a moment, mother!” broke in Maisry, almost impatiently.

  She sat down beside Rusty, found his hand, and clung to it.

  “Will you go out and walk with me, Rusty?” she asked, gently. “If we walk a lot and talk a little, you may feel better.—Or have you had supper? Will you let me bring you something?”

  “Ah, Maisry,” he said, “I am so full of grief that there is no room for food in me. My belly is crowded with grief, and my throat is choked with it. There is grief between my teeth; and the taste of it is on the roots of my tongue.—He has gone away from me. My father has gone away, and my house is empty.”

  “It’s a thing all boys have to outgrow,” said the major, calmly.

  But, at this, Richard Lester frowned and shook his head.

  “But I may take you,” said Rusty to Maisry, rising suddenly to his feet. “Come home with me, Maisry.—Come!”

  He drew her to her feet.

  “Go home with you?” said Mrs. Lester, almost screaming. “Go home with you?—Without being married?—Is the man crazy? You know we have to wait till a preacher comes to the town for the marriage. Richard, say something! Do something! Richard, are you just going to sit there?”

  “Maisry will tell him,” said Richard Lester.

  “I can’t go, Rusty,” said the girl to Rusty. “There has to be our marriage.”

  At this, he made a sudden gesture, and the robe slipped entirely away from his head, showing the grime of soot and iron-dust on his face. It was almost as thick, in spots, as streaks of Indian paint.

  “I have made the gifts. Your father has given you to me,” he said. “When I take you to my lodge and lift you over the threshold, you are my wife.”

  “Oh, heavens!” said Mrs. Lester. “Do you hear him, Richard?—Major Marston, Major Marston, are such things permitted under your eye?”

  “Never!” said the major, emphatically. “I’ll stop it in good time, my dear Mrs. Lester.”

  Maisry was saying, “You know, Rusty, we have different customs.—There’s a ring given, and a minister reads from a book, and we kneel down together. But when we stand up, we are man and wife.”

  “Kneel?” said Rusty. “Why should I kneel, except to Sweet Medicine?”

  “I shall kneel, then, Rusty, when the time comes, and you shall stand,” said Maisry patiently. “But to go with you now—I can’t do that.—I want to. And my heart aches because you have an empty house. But before the end of the week a minister will be here. He’s coming up from the next trading post. And then we shall be married.”

  “Maisry, you might take better advice than you’ll find in your own silly, empty little head, before you start fixing your wedding day!” cried the mother.

  The major shrugged his shoulders, but he said nothing. And Rusty, after staring at Maisry for a moment, said:

  “Well, is it true that a girl changes her mind once a year?”

  “Other girls may change. I shall never change,” said Maisry, quietly.

  “So?” answered Rusty. He took a breath, deeply and gently. He smiled a little. “Your mind and your heart, Maisry—will they never change?”

  “Never,” she told him.

  From around his neck he took the thin braid of horsehair, with the little green scarab attached to it.

  “My mother wore it,” said Rusty. “When she died fighting for me, the Cheyennes took it away. I have worn it ever since. It has turned bullets and knives away from me, while fighting. It is a great medicine.—Look, now! I put it around your throat. Now the thing is close to your heart; and while it is there, it is I. If ever you wish to stop thinking of me, send it to me, and when I see the green beetle in my hand again, I shall know that your mind has changed, as my father says it will change.”

  She
took the green beetle in the palm of her hand and kissed it reverently, solemnly.

  “I shall never change,” she said.

  He remained for a moment close to the door, his eyes scanning her face, little by little. Then, raising his arm in a silent gesture of farewell, he stepped out into the darkness.

  And in the house behind him, Mrs. Lester was weeping heavily.

  “Indian!—Nothing but his skin is white! Richard, you must stop it!—Oh, Maisry, how can you think of marrying a savage?—Major Marston, tell us what to do? Tell us what to do?”

  The major was thinking hard of several things that might be done, but he doubted that they would bear telling.

  CHAPTER 7

  Bill Tenney had a bruised shoulder and a bump over one eye, after he landed on the ground of the corral. But in his heart there was a spirit of quiet content, and a resolution. He had bought a powerful, cruel Spanish bit with which, he told himself, he would be able to control even the savage head of the stallion, for Rusty always rode the White Horse with no more than a light hackamore. And as for pitching, if a horse is hobbled or sidelined it cannot buck efficiently.

  The next time he tried his hand on the White Horse, he would work with the utmost skill that his experience had taught him. Nothing would be left to chance. In fact, already he could almost feel between his knees the barrel of the great horse, sleeked over and quivering with strength, sweeping him across the prairies like a bird across the sky.

  He took his confidence of victory with him to Tom Wayling’s saloon, and stood in front of the mirror which the Cheyennes had cracked as he swallowed a glass or two of red-eye, slowly. He wanted to brood on the future. He wanted to call up the pictures of the things that he would do when he had the White Horse under him. He could see camps in confusion, men mounting their ponies to pursue a raider, and the plunder and the plunderer bore swiftly away on the back of the stallion. He could see himself laughing at pursuit; toying with it. He could see himself overtaking his enemy as surely as a heaven-directed bolt of lightning.

  These images, pleasant to the mind of wolfish Bill Tenney, kept a smile working in and around the corners of his mouth. Sinister laughter flashed in his eyes, and dimmed again. Certainly nothing was farther from his mind than the thought of gray-headed Dikkon Saunders, from whose trading post down the Tulmac River he had stolen the twenty pounds of gold. Even when he heard the quiet voice saying: “There he is, boys!” it was a moment before Tenney realized.

  Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw four men closing on him, among them gray-headed Dikkon Saunders himself.

  Bill Tenney lifted his whiskey glass, poured the last of his drink down his throat as though totally oblivious of the danger around him, and then leaped for the window! He reached it, too, and would have bounded out into the open night in another instant, but the swinging butt of a rifle in Saunders’s hands clicked against his skull and dropped him in a heap.

  When his wits came back to him, there was no longer the pressure of a heavy money belt across his loins, and he was being marched up the street of the town by a pair of long-haired plainsmen, each of whom securely gripped one of his arms. Weaponless as he now was, he would have put up a fight against these fellows, beyond a doubt, but before him walked a third man, and two more strode at his back. Therefore he said nothing; attempted nothing. A trapped wolf may lie still, too wise to struggle; and Bill Tenney could do the same. A great many of the townsmen came out to look, and they saw Tenney, so recently a hero, now walking in the swinging lantern light, under guard, and bound for the fort which was also the prison.

  Only one face meant anything to Tenney. That was the calm countenance of Rusty Sabin, who stared straight ahead and seemed to see nothing as Tenney was led past the blacksmith shop. And Tenney wanted to turn and curse the man’s indifference; this man whom he had saved from the river. However, he said nothing here. Neither did he speak when he got to the gate of the fort, where the soldiers took him over. There only Dikkon Saunders and one witness were admitted. They brought out irons, and fastened Bill Tenney’s hands together. Then they led him into a guardroom, long and dreary and empty, except for two tables and some benches, all covered with carved initials.

  Presently an orderly came into the room, leaving an inner door open; and through this Saunders was marched into the presence of Major Marston. Bill Tenney recognized the major, of course. He felt that he would have recognized a representative of the law and of the army, merely by the cold detestation that ran through his own vitals. He lifted his eyes once and looked long and searchingly into the major’s face. Then he dropped his gaze to the floor. It was not often that Tenney stared people in the face. His eyes were a weapon, to be used as such.

  The major, his hands in his pockets so that the stiff skirts of his jacket flared straight out, walked up and down behind the desk on the raised dais, which added to his dignity of command. He gave Tenney only a casual observance at each of his turns.

  “Charge?” he said.

  “Robbery,” said the sergeant.

  “The fellow looks like a stealing coyote.—No, more like a wolf,” said the major. “I’ve seen him before. Pulling something out of the water, that time.” He laughed as he said this. “Go on with the charge, sergeant.”

  It was briefly rehearsed—how Bill Tenney had entered the trading post when only two men were there, backed them into a corner with his levelled rifle, and broken open the cash box. The money had been found again on his person. It was exhibited in the money belt.

  The major picked up the belt, whistled as he felt the amount of the burden, tossed it down with a crash on the desk, and then continued his promenade, laughing a little. It pleased him to administer justice. He was delighted to be the only judge in the district, and these impromptu duties helped to fill out the measure of his self-importance. Still chuckling he said:

  “Only a mad wolf will steal by daylight. You should have known that, Tenney. Now you’re going to be taken down where you’ll cool off. We have some rooms down there beside the river that raise mold about as fast as the prairies grow grass in the spring. You’re going to have a chance to enjoy a quiet rest down there. You’re going to have a chance to think things over. I’ll be thinking, too. I’ll be deciding what to do with you. But before you’re put into such a cool place, we’ll warm you up. We’ll give you the warmest shirt you ever wore in your life. We’ll give you a red shirt, Tenney.”

  Laughter stopped his speech again. His eyes were actually merry as they danced over Tenney.

  Then he said: “Take him out in the yard and give him the whip.”

  “How many strokes, sir?” said the sergeant.

  “I don’t know,” said the major. “I’ll have to see about that. Get a blacksnake, and bring in one of the teamsters.”

  They took Bill Tenney out into the central yard of the fort and tied him to a post. They stripped him naked to the waist, and tied him by the manacles that held his wrists. The post was so low that he had to bend over a bit, and that made the huge muscles in his back stand out. Those muscles sprang in ridges from the small of the back, and rippled away in rapidly undulating waves over the shoulders.

  The man did not seem naked somehow. He was clothed in his strength. And his long hair fell down over his face like a mask of darkness.

  The teamster was a wide-jawed brute with the face of a frog—a hunchback with arms that were vastly long and powerful. He chewed tobacco, and spat a thin jet through his teeth between each of the whip strokes which he deliberately laid on the back of Bill Tenney. The teamster loved this work. First, as he slicked the blacksnake, through the palm of his left hand, he said to the major:

  “You want blood, or no blood, major?”

  “Which hurts worst?” asked Major Marston.

  “I dunno,” said the teamster. “It’s sort of a matter of what you want. I’ve seen mules that sure hated the flat whang of the whip and the welt it raised on ’em. And I’ve seen mules that don’t mind a thump, but
that rear and tear when the blood begins to trickle down. There’s mules that I always keep a raw spot on, on each side of the tail. Once I get ’em raw, I keep ’em raw. Then, with just a leetle flicker of the lash, they try to climb out through their collars.—And there’s still others that I keep one big welt on, and when it comes times to make ’em scratch, I give ’em a little tap on the old welt, and they groan like they was human.”

  The teamster laughed. The major laughed also.

  “Try it plain. Try a few welts, first,” said the major.

  The teamster tried a few welts. They stood out red and round on the back of Tenney. First there was a white streak with blue edges. Then the white turned crimson and began to swell. The sound of these strokes was like the falling of a rod. Tenney did not stir. He got his hands on the top of the post, and gripped until the big muscles of his arms stood out and trembled.

  Suddenly the major called out with a strange ring in his voice: “Blood! Blood, man! Tap the red, and let it run a while.”

  The teamster, without pausing in his swaying motions, spat yellow through his teeth and turned his wide, horrible grin over his shoulder toward the major. At the same time, the whip struck with a different sound; there was a smart popping, and instantly a trickle of red flowed down Bill Tenney’s back. A shudder ran through him at the same time. And the major, marking this with a cheerful eye, shouted:

  “That’s it! Let him have it, now. Let’s see the red come out of him.”

  Every stroke of the whip sliced the flesh; and in a few moments Tenney’s back was crimson. The red ran down over his trousers. But after the first slight movement, he did not stir.

  The major kept drawing closer and closer, until a flicker of thin red drops flew off the end of the lash and streaked his face. At that, he leaped back with an oath. He pulled out a handkerchief and scrubbed at his face.

  “All right,” he called, finally. “Let up on him now. We’ll just have his dirty back washed clean, now. Get some salt and water and pour a little vinegar into it. We’ll clean the wounds the whip made!”