Frontier Feud

by Max Brand

  “Well, I suppose so. It might have been a little more clever if you had always washed your face and hands before you let her see you.”

  “A clean heart—that is better than clean hands.”

  “Well, a white girl has a good deal of pride. She likes to see her man stand out among other men.”

  “Ah, yes—yes!” murmured Rusty.

  And as he spoke, he looked up at the major’s bright uniform, with its epaulets, its trim, closely fitted collar, and at the handsome face above it. The major was a big man too; and as for the strength of his arm, it was said that he had once cloven the skull of a Comanche, with a stroke of his saber. Cloven it to the chin!

  “Yes,” added Rusty. “A man like you—a chief—a war chief! But I shall see Maisry before I go. Perhaps when I stand in front of her—well, when I touch her hand with my hand and her eyes with my eyes—”

  “I wish you could,” said the major, heartily. “That was what I begged her to do. I told her that I was setting you free, and she cried out against that. ‘I never want to see him again!’ she said.”

  Rusty’s head jerked back.

  “Did she say that?” he asked.

  He withdrew his arm from the major’s hand and stood stiffly erect. His face, at a stroke, had become impassive except for a very faint smile which pulled on the corners of the mouth. With such an expression, an Indian would face the torture, surrounded by his enemies. And at sight of it a keen thrill of pleasure ran through Marston’s heart.

  “I’m sorry!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t want to tell you that. I begged Maisry to see you again. I pleaded with her. I pointed out that you’re new to the ways of white men; that perhaps you could become something more than a blacksmith—”

  “Yes,” said Rusty, with dignity; and he made a slow gesture toward the window.

  Somehow, at that gesture, the major was suddenly able to see the wide waves of the prairie over which the sky stretches its longest arms. He could see a single file of Indians on the warpath, half naked, their knees lifted by their short stirrups; and at their head rode the young chief and medicine man, Red Hawk, known among the whites as Rusty Sabin. Yes, Rusty could be something more than a blacksmith, if he chose.

  “The mind of a girl is like the wind,” went on Marston. “Maisry has changed like that. She blew with you—for you—and now she’s blowing against you. So much that she doesn’t want to see you. Bill Tenney—he’s a part of it.”

  “Because he is my friend?” asked Rusty.

  “You see, he appears to be a bit of a ruffian. A thief—that sort of thing. That’s what seems to disgust Maisry.”

  “I understand,” said Rusty Sabin.

  “So,” continued the major, “she asked me to bring back to you something that you would understand. Something that would make you realize that she doesn’t wish to see you again—”

  Here he paused and looked down. Real emotion had overcome Marston, at this instant. Perhaps to every liar there comes one cold moment in the telling of the lie. However, he recovered himself at once and with a frown and a shake of the head, he took out the narrow little horsehair lariat, so finely braided, and offered it to Rusty, with the scarab hanging from it.

  The smile, he saw, remained carved on Rusty’s face, but the face was gray-green with agony. Rusty took the green beetle and drew the loop of the string over his head. The scarab itself he dropped inside the neck of his shirt.

  “This is ended,” said the White Indian. “I shall not see her again. To you, oh my friend, I give thanks. I give you my hand and my friendship.”

  A vague, cloudy glimpse of a troubled future rushed across the mind of the major. He saw this stony face of the White Indian turned passionate with anger. He saw a death struggle that locked the two of them together. Then the image went out of his mind, and he was shaking Sabin’s hand.

  Rusty descended from that room as he had gone the night before. The major remained for a time, contemplating his triumph, knowing well that this freeing of the prisoner would gain him popularity all through the town, and knowing that above all it would give him strength in the house of the Lesters.

  And meanwhile, Rusty, in the dark of the night beneath, had dropped upon his face and was digging his fingers into the ground. He lay there for a long time, then he stood up and ran, because the thought of Maisry worked in him and drew on him until he wanted to rush to the Lester house and crawl before her on his knees, begging her to give him her love again.

  That was why Rusty ran, shadowy and swift, out of the town of Fort Marston and into the dark of the plains. He ran until, when he glanced over his shoulder, the lights of the town had drawn together in a single huddle, like the brightness of one eye with many shining facets. There he paused; and standing with folded arms for a long moment, he stared until the tears in his eyes caused the thin rays of light to shatter into many colors.

  After that, he filled and lighted his pipe.

  On his knees he blew the four ceremonial puffs to the four quarters, then to the Underground People, and to the Sky People, whose dancing footfalls cause the stars to tremble on the curving fields of heaven. After that, with lifted hands he called aloud; and with every word, his voice grew louder because the greatness of his agony was passing out into the sounds.

  “Sweet Medicine, you once loved me. But I left my people and went far away from you, among the white men. All the time, you kept my heart drifting back to the tepees of the Cheyennes. While I lay in the white man’s house, my ghost walked among the lodges and looked in at the red fires and smelled the buffalo meat stewing in the pots. The dogs came and licked my hands. The children cried out around me, also. The braves stood close and smiled on me. But I stayed far away from them all, until you sent your anger on me. The soul of my mother was locked up in the green stone with my soul. Yet I gave it away; and then your anger came on me.

  “You took from me the White Horse. Even the Sky People must know him. They must see him flying across the dark face of the earth as we see a shining cloud blow across the face of the heavens. But you took the White Horse away from me. He no longer waits for me, stamping and neighing; he is gone, and I am alone.

  “You turned the heart of my woman against me; you made her despise me; you made her tremble with disgust. My father, also, you snatched away from me, drawing him out and away, into the night. Therefore, I am alone.

  “I was so happy that every hour I was laughing. Now there is nothing left and I am returning to you. I am afraid of you, Sweet Medicine, and therefore I am coming back, with my hands held up, asking for help. Be kind to me. Open my breast and take the sorrow out of my heart. Blow into my nostrils happiness like a spring day.

  “And I shall leave my white brothers. I shall not return to them. I shall give them up; deny them and cast them out of my thoughts. They have been false to me, and they have lied to me. They have scorned me because you took your strength away from me. Give it back to me now, and I shall make men honor you again because of me. I shall do great things. I shall lead the warriors, and make them sing your name aloud, all night long.

  “But the white men I forget; I turn my back on them. Their lights now die as I turn my back on them. I shall find a wife among the Cheyennes; I shall take a mate among the Indians. Sweet Medicine, teach me to be a good Cheyenne, and to forget my father and my mother. The tribe shall be my mother, and you shall be my father. Hear me, Sweet Medicine. And open my breast and kill me quickly, or take the pain away.”

  After that, he went on across the prairies, jogging steadily. And, as he jogged, the stars in the sky jerked up and down before his eyes.

  He was a great medicine man. That he knew, because it had been proved many and many a time in the past. And he had seen Sweet Medicine in the guise of a gigantic owl, in the Sacred Valley. He knew, therefore, that he had been a mighty spirit on this earth. To him had been given the fairest of women and the greatest of horses. But now there was only misery and doubt in his breast, and Sweet Medicine, to
whom he had prayed, would not open his breast and take from him the sickness of grief.

  Now and again, in his eyes, there was a stinging. Perhaps his whole soul had been weakened by his stay among the white men. Perhaps, when he rejoined the Cheyennes at last, they would find his softness and would despise him again, as they had done long ago when his courage had not been great enough to permit him to endure the tortures of the initiation.

  The greatness of his doubt caused him to stop running, and he continued to walk forward, very slowly. He was in the center of an emptiness no less great than his grief. Only his loneliness was as vast as his sorrow.

  CHAPTER 14

  The joy which had been in Bill Tenney as he rushed the great stallion across the plains had gone out of him, after a time. For the blood-stiffened shirt rasped against his back, and every fold of it was a torment. Therefore he halted the White Horse.

  That was not so easily done. For when he took hold on the reins of the hackamore and gave a stout pull, the stallion bored out his head and doubled his pace. The slight humping of the back gave sure signal that pitching was about to start, and Tenney had a dizzy picture of the monster hurling him to the ground and then flinging away into freedom!

  So Tenney stopped pulling on the reins and talked gently. The talking did far more than the hauling at the reins. Gradually the White Horse came back into the hand of the rider, so that a mere touch on the reins was enough to check him to a walk.

  After that, afraid to dismount, Bill Tenney gradually worked the torment of the shirt off his welted back, rolled it, and tied it to the side of the saddle by a pair of the dangling leather strings. Then he could go on with a greater comfort; he could even forget his pain somewhat.

  With that forgetfulness, however, there began another torment which was of the mind alone. He had let his friend fall into the hands of the soldiers in his place. But long before, he had planned to betray that friendship. The whole logic of his life taught Bill Tenney to take what he could, without remorse. But all other things he had taken by craft or by sheer daring; and on this occasion he had received a free gift.

  He began to tell himself that his brain was softening, and that he was a fool.

  He had the White Horse under him; he was equipped to defy the dangers of the prairies. If the ways of this part of the world were strange to him, he would soon grow used to them. And he had a rifle and enough ammunition to assure him of food for a long time. He had lost the gold which he had stolen; he had gained a thorough flogging; but all of these payments were more than made up by the possession of the stallion. Therefore, why should he not be happy? Why should he be tormented by a sense of loss?

  “Rusty,” he said aloud, “is just a poor half-witted fool!”

  He was sorry that he had spoken those words aloud, because they awakened in his mind undying echoes which rolled continually through his brain.

  “A poor, half-witted fool! A poor, half-witted fool!” he repeated.

  But half-wits do not venture into a fort crowded with armed men, for the sake of a friend. Fools are not apt to defy the law and give up the prospect of a marriage, for the sake of a friend.

  Somewhere in Bill Tenney’s soul hammer strokes were falling on an iron anvil. A new idea was ringing out: “Friendship is sacred! Friendship is sacred!”

  “Damn friendship!” snarled Tenney, aloud.

  The stallion leaped suddenly ahead and nearly unseated him; and for an instant, with chilling blood, he felt that the horse had understood the blasphemy he had uttered. Aye, the whole world would detest him if it could hear what he had said.

  He pacified himself somewhat by deciding that when opportunity offered he would return to the fort; he would kill Major Marston, and he would liberate Rusty Sabin. In this way, he would redeem his pride and his self-respect and so complete his payment to Sabin.

  In this way he put his conscience to sleep, for the time being, and concentrated his attention on the stallion.

  He had watched, during the early part of the ride, exactly how Rusty had managed the stallion, and he had heard the “terms” of the ordering. But it seemed that between the horse and his real owner there was little need of speech. By a gesture, Rusty could control his mount. It was as though some electric current from Rusty’s brain flowed down through the rawhide reins and touched the brain of the animal. As for Bill Tenney, he had to experiment, and only in that manner could he work out carefully one possibility after another.

  The horse reined across the neck, of course, but Tenney discovered that he responded to touches, not to jerks and hauls. A lifting of the reins was enough to make him increase his gait, and lifting the reins higher at any time was enough to send him away like a bullet, at full speed. To urge him with the flat of the hand or with the heel was instantly to invite trouble. And the best way, plainly, was to treat him as a partner, a traveling companion with a proud volition of his own and plenty of brain to work out every problem of the trail.

  This investigation of the stallion’s properties kept Bill Tenney thoroughly employed until he struck one of those patches of badlands through which he had been guided by Rusty, during the night. And in the bottom of the first gulley, he struck a rivulet of water that was too much for him to resist.

  He was about to dismount, when he saw a huge buffalo wolf sitting on an eminence a quarter of a mile away from him, and obviously watching. It gave Bill Tenney an odd thrill to see the brute.

  The wolf began to scratch with a hind leg, and Tenney, irritated, he hardly knew why, reached for his rifle. Instantly, the wolf was gone from view.

  He bathed his back slowly, carefully. The effect of the cold water was to make him groan with relief. He was feverish, of course, and the cold sopping cloth with which he squeezed or patted the water onto his bare flesh gave him the most exquisite relief.

  Looking up from that occupation, he saw, not two hundred yards away, on the opposite side of the ravine, a second wolf as big as the first. Again, Tenney snatched up his rifle and tried a snapshot, but the brute disappeared just as the trigger was pulled.

  Well, if the wolves knew firearms as well as that, they signified hard hunting.

  The White Horse began to show a great deal of interest in this second appearance of a wolf. He danced away a step or two, and then stood beautifully alert, turning his head and looking anxiously up and down the shallow cañon. He seemed to find danger in the very air which he snuffed.

  Bill Tenney could remember what he had heard—that a horse of the prairies is more keenly on guard than a human hunter. Perhaps there was danger at hand. He was about to step over to the White Horse and remount when a chorus of shrill yells struck his heart cold. The cries came from both up and down the valley. And now a troop of half a dozen Indians appeared from either side, racing around the bends and bearing down on him!

  CHAPTER 15

  The first yell of the Indians seemed to run a spur into the White Horse. He tore straight across the ravine, hit what looked to Tenney like a perpendicular slope, and went up it, enclosed in a cloud of dust which evaporated in the wind at the top, revealing that the stallion had disappeared.

  Tenney had only had time to snatch the rifle out of its cover; but he did not use the gun.

  When he was in Kentucky, he had heard a lot about fighting Indians on the plains. There were tales of men who had raised their rifles and waited, reserving fire, until the Indian charge split to either side, each brave feeling that the muzzle was pointed at his breast. He had always felt that he would be able to do the same thing. It was simple, easy, convincing; and in the tales he had heard, it always had the same results. The Indians broke, and they kept on breaking.

  But now he thought of other tales, of whole armed caravans which had been wiped out by a single attack. He saw more than he thought; he used his eyes and drew deductions. A lot of these Indians before him were as naked as Mother Nature, except for a small covering about the loins, and the sunlight played over muscles of solid bronze. Indians are
supposed to be strong in the legs and weak in the arms and shoulders, but these fellows looked as though they were professional wrestlers, every one of them.

  They made a pretty picture—for a man on top of a hill. It would have been a nice sight—if the red men had been going the other way. But they came on horses made beautiful by speed. Most of the riders had rifles; some extended lances. A few carried in their hands nothing but short sticks.

  Bill Tenney knew about the ones who carried sticks. They were the hot-blooded young devils who had sworn that they would touch a living enemy with the coup stick before they drew a weapon. Thereby, they would achieve the highest of all honors—for a mounted man to touch an armed footman who was uninjured!

  Queer devils, these Indians—a little too queer for Bill Tenney’s taste. Like all thieves, he was essentially a practical man. Now he dropped the butt of his rifle to the ground and, leaning on the barrel of it, waited for the charge to drive home.

  Some of the riders did not go straight at him. Half of them swerved to the side and charged the steep bank up which the White Horse had plunged, but none of them gained the top. Two or three pushed their struggling ponies halfway to the crest of the rigid slope, and then were rewarded with handsome tumbles that stretched them on the flat of the ravine floor below. But they rose, remounted, and seemed unharmed.

  The half-dozen who remained in the charge against Bill Tenney swooped about him. They came close so that he could see the silver glistening of the tribal scars in their breasts. Those scars came from the initiation festivals about which he had heard, when thongs were torn through the pectoral muscles by iron-willed young initiates.

  The bodies all seemed young, all equally young; and the merest youth of the party had a face cast in a savage mold. The older men were like cruel masks; things designed to strike terror to the heart. Bill Tenney was afraid, but he was also resigned, watchful, ready for any chance if it offered.