Frontier Feud

by Max Brand

  He extended his hands into the smoke that rose above the fire, expanding lazily before it was sucked up through the vent above.

  In that smoke Rusty bathed his hands, his arms, his face, and then his body, with half-imaginary handfuls.

  “I wash away the white that is in me!” said Rusty, gravely. “I become now a true Cheyenne! All my blood is Cheyenne blood! All my heart—all my heart is—Cheyenne—and—all my—”

  His voice broke.

  Blue Bird, dazed, looked suddenly down to the ground lest she see tears in the eyes of this great chief and medicine man. She was so overwhelmed that she did not even see him leave the tent. But when she looked up again, he was gone.

  He was gone into the open, with the sunset making a great bonfire of the sky, and the wind softly blowing the flaming clouds in the zenith, where the deepening blue dissolved them.

  A great voice shouted behind him. It was Tenney, beating a huge hand on his shoulder.

  “Have you heard the news, Rusty? The soldiers are gonna tackle us! They’re gonna try to wipe us out!—Oh, God!—Oh, God! If only I can get the sights of my rifle lined up on the major! If only I can get him hugged small, inside my sights!”

  With his powerful arm, he brandished his rifle on high. Then he laughed, and smote Rusty’s shoulder again.

  “What’s the matter, Rusty?” he said. “Ain’t you one for a fight? Does thinkin’ about the guns make you kind of fade out inside? Aye, a lot of pretty good men feel that way. But when the shootin’ starts, they’re all right. I’ve found out in a lot of fights that them that look the most scared are the ones that raise the most hell. That’s the way you’ll be!”

  Rusty said nothing. He looked at the huge man beside him, and saw what appeared to be an Indian. Clad in trousers of fringed deerskin and a beautifully decorated shirt that dropped as low as his knees, with a tuft of feathers in his long hair and beaded moccasins on his feet, all the trappings of an Indian dignitary, only the paler face of Bill Tenney showed that he did not belong to the tribe.

  He was happy in this Cheyenne camp, and the happiness had modified the wolf look in his face. He seemed fatter now, but it was merely because he was less hungry in spirit. He had lived among people who gave to him as though he was the son of every brave in the tribe. He was the “brother” of Red Hawk, and therefore he was the brother of every Cheyenne in Standing Bull’s band. He could do no wrong. If a feast was given, he was sure to be asked to it. If he desired to make a speech, he had by this time picked up almost enough Cheyenne words to make it; and where he failed, Lazy Wolf filled in the gaps, making a flowing, smiling translation. In that way, he had been able to tell of his own land of Kentucky, and of certain feats which he accomplished there. And the braves would mutter their approval, for nothing that he had ever done could possibly be wrong. Was he not the brother of Red Hawk? It was like being the brother of a god!

  This atmosphere of approval had fleshed the very spirit of Bill Tenney and made him stand straighter. His eyes seemed to be larger and calmer. And so Rusty looked at him with approval now, though there was a sorrow in him which misted over all other things.

  “If there is fighting,” said Rusty, gently, “I don’t think I shall be sad.”

  In fact, he felt just then that death was such a small thing that he was even able to smile a bit.

  Tenney saw that smile, without understanding it. His mind was rushing on to other things. The powerful grip of his hand seized Rusty’s arm and almost surrounded it. For the arm was not large, though it was packed with tough, nervous fibers of muscle which for a time had enabled him to swing a fourteen-pound sledge all day long—had even enabled him to swing it up and feather it down, back-handed, until its cold face kissed his chin, and then was swung back again.

  Tenney said, “Is it right?—Is it true?—Is the Blue Bird back in the camp?”

  “It’s true,” said Rusty. And he peered suddenly at Tenney, and saw the man blush. “Do you want her?” asked Rusty Sabin.

  “Want her?” said Tenney. “I’d die for her!—I want her so much that she gets between me and the taste of stewed buffalo tongues. And God knows they’re good eating! She gets between me and the game I shoot at. I can even forget how a mustang’s buckin’ under me, when I think about her.” Tenney’s face was working with emotion.

  “Is it that way?” said Rusty.

  He said it dreamily, and Tenney stared at him.

  “Well,” Rusty added, “she is beautiful. I know that. When I look at her, I can keep on looking for a long time. There is softness all round her mouth. Have you seen that?”

  “Have I seen it? I ain’t blind!” cried Tenney.

  “And there is strength all around her chin. Her forehead is big and free, and there is space for thinking inside it. She is brave, but she is not sad. Sometimes, when I think about her, I could laugh—because thinking about her makes me happy.”

  “Does it?” snarled Tenney.

  “But there is only one knife that fits the hand, and only one horse that fits the mind, and only one woman that fits the heart. That is why she could never belong to me,” said Rusty Sabin. “And if you want her for your squaw, go ask her father for her, brother. If Lazy Wolf wants a price, I have a great many possessions, and they shall all be yours. Now let us go on and see why the warriors are shouting, outside the camp.”

  It was a miracle to Tenney. He knew where Blue Bird surely belonged—fitted into the hand of Rusty Sabin. And yet the man was flinging her away. Well, he was not one to ask for reasons or motives. It was better for him to accept the good that he found, and where he could find it.

  They went on past the outskirts of the camp, and now they saw all the rest of the Cheyennes proceeding forward, while shouts came ringing out of the distance and a small, sweeping thunder rolled toward them across the plain.

  Then they saw the dust cloud—not thick, because there was not much dust, but rather only a haze to be knocked out of the grass at this season of the year. Under the cloud ran the body of the herd of horses—led by a shining shape!

  “The White Horse!” cried Rusty. “The White Horse!”

  There was no doubt that it was the stallion, driving like a shining spearpoint over the plain. And after him came a whole torrent of horses.

  “What’s he doin’?” demanded big Bill Tenney. “Gone out fishing—and brought home the whole catch?”

  It looked that way.

  The Cheyennes began to laugh and shout. Some of them looked at Red Hawk, shaking their heads and wondering. It would be another miracle which they would attribute to him forever, if the White Horse actually brought back the stealings through which he had built up his herd.

  The camp horses, in the meantime, seeing the approach of this mass of their kind, bunched together more closely. The boys and the young braves who had been guarding them at their grazing spread out to allow the strangers to be incorporated into the whole. It looked as though riches were about to be showered upon Standing Bull’s tribe. Only Rusty Sabin was murmuring:

  “Has he really come back to me—or is he here to be a thief?”

  The White Horse seemed to stand up from the dark of the plain like a great light, and, as he came close to the Indian herd he threw up his head and sent a whinny before him; a rousing blast that stirred both beast and man.

  A moment more, and his lofty, tossing crest was sweeping through the Indian horses. They spilled this way and that. They fell into a whirling confusion, through which rushed the great wave of the strange ponies. Then the whole mass staggered and wavered; and with a thousand neighings and squealings, the mixed herd bolted in a headlong stampede.

  The trumpet call of the White Horse gave direction to the flight. He had swept through the entire crowd, and issuing on the farther side, he had gathered behind him the rush of the stampede. He was again the glistening point of the spear, and behind him moved a huge, flying wedge.

  All of this had happened so quickly that not even the horse-herders wh
o were nearest the place were able to move to prevent it. Such boldness as this in a wild horse had never been seen before. It was as though the White Horse’s familiarity with men had now made him despise them.

  The whole body of the Cheyenne ponies was in headlong flight! There were not a dozen horses left to the camp—and half of these were being frantically ridden by the herders in pursuit of the fugitives.

  But man-ridden horses have no chance of overtaking unweighted ponies, half wild by nature, and soon made all wild by a good, stirring example. From the very first, the herders were losing ground. The great, thundering crowd of horses rushed off into the dusk, and they were only half seen when, for the last time, the triumphant neigh of the White Horse rang faintly back upon the ears of the watchers.

  CHAPTER 28

  At any time, that loss would have been a major calamity. But now it was a direct blow, and a curse from heaven. For if the camp broke up and drifted away in pursuit of the horses, it would have to move as slowly as a wounded snake, because in it there were fully a hundred invalids, rapidly gaining strength, but still quite incapable of making prolonged marches. And if a selected number of braves started off on foot, and with the few remaining horses, the camp would be stripped of a part of its remaining force at the very moment when Major Marston’s soldiers were about to strike.

  In five minutes the truth was realized, and the howling of the women began to rise in their lament. Even the dogs of the camp added their voices.

  As for the braves, those heroes of the plains were suddenly turned from lions to bloodless curs. The camp could be made defensible, perhaps, but the only walls with which the prairie Indians were familiar were the blue walls of the horizon, between which enemies could skirmish and charge, and through which the defeated could fade away. They were not accustomed to steady fights behind fortifications; nor was fighting on foot the Indian’s talent. To be without a horse was almost as bad as to be without legs.

  They greatly outnumbered Major Marston’s soldiers, but what good was that? If they tried to charge on foot, the cavalry would retreat at ease, and then cut to pieces the rear of the Cheyennes as they retreated. Provisions were not plentiful in the camp, and all hunting would become impossible. Worst of all, heavy stores of ammunition had not been brought along on this southern march, and two or three days of brisk skirmishing would probably exhaust the supplies of powder and lead. After that, the Cheyennes would lie at the mercy of the whites, like a huge, helpless body which could be worried until its power of resistance was entirely gone. It was the sort of a game that Major Marston would know how to play to perfection.—That was why the heart was gone out of the warriors; that was why the Cheyenne braves stood about, stupidly.

  To make the blow more paralyzing, it had fallen upon them through the horse of their great medicine man—through the horse of Red Hawk himself. The thing was not to be understood, and the braves, looking up at the flaming, darkening sky, for help from Sweet Medicine, saw no hope.

  Finally, across the plain, the little troop of their herdsmen was seen slowly returning. And almost at the same time, out of the south as if to take full advantage of every chance, the long, thin column of the cavalry hove in view, little ant-like figures crawling against the red glow of the horizon.

  Standing Bull, powerful and intelligent chief though he was, was helpless now. It was the white man, Lazy Wolf, who became the greatest force in the camp. He roused the braves with a small speech, and set the leaders in motion. He dispatched his daughter to speak to the chief squaws. And presently, under the supervision of Lazy Wolf himself, men and women and even the children were busily scooping out a shallow trench all around the camp, and raising a low bank outside it. The invalids, those who were well enough, came and gave their feeble best to the work. Men sat on the ground, and for lack of better tools, slashed and stabbed at the earth with their knives.

  Lazy Wolf, calmly puffing a pipe, went here and there, giving advice and corrections. He was instantly obeyed. Under ordinary conditions, he had little to say about the management of the tribe’s affairs, but when unfamiliar and dangerous circumstances arose, he was looked to with great expectancy, because the fertility of his invention had been proved over and over again.

  Already there was a shallow trench—a low bank sufficient to shelter prone riflemen when the darkness fell completely.

  After that, out of the darkness, a voice called in clumsy Cheyenne, such as a trader might have picked up. It was a messenger from the camp of the soldiers, inviting Standing Bull to advance fifty paces into the dark and there converse with the war chief of the whites.

  Standing Bull took a rifle, mounted one of the few remaining horses, and straightway rode out from the camp. He could be seen dimly against the stars, at a little distance from the edge of the camp; and another rider could be seen coming toward him from the distance. This was Major Marston himself, happier than he had ever been before in all his days. He opened the conversation by going at once to the point. Through the interpreter he said:

  “You people are helpless, Standing Bull. Your horses are all gone. We saw them blown away like the dust. Now, if you prefer to bring this thing to a fight, you know that you’re lost before you begin. I’ve started patrols riding around the camp. Your men won’t be able to get away. In a few days, you’ll be starving; and soon after that, you’ll be dead. Do you see that you’re helpless?”

  Standing Bull answered, “We have been friends. There is no war between the Cheyennes and the whites. Why do you come here to harm us?”

  “Dogs and wolves can never be friends,” said Major Marston, borrowing a touch of Indian picturesqueness for his speech. “How many white trappers and settlers have your people cut off and murdered with tortures? But now we have you fast, and we’re going to keep you that way. If you want to show that you are friendly, give me two men out of your camp.”

  “Which two men?” asked Standing Bull.

  “Rusty Sabin, whom you call Red Hawk, and the other white man, Bill Tenney.”

  Standing Bull’s reply came in those words which are still remembered in certain parts of the West:

  “Red Hawk is my brother! His eye is my eye. His heart is my heart. His blood is my blood. Hai! To all the Cheyennes, he is a father and a brother and a strong hand in evil days. Ask for the teeth out of my mouth and the fingers from my hands, but do not ask for Red Hawk.”

  When the major understood this reply, he was in a fury. He shouted out:

  “If I can’t have him living, then I’ll have him dead. Go back to your camp, you fool—and tell the women that they had better start their howling again! They’re dead, and the men are dead. I’m going to write my name in Cheyenne blood—write it so damned deep that it will never come out of the earth!—Go back and tell your red-skinned dogs to howl. It’s the sort of music I want to hear!”

  That was the word which Standing Bull carried back to the camp, with a heavy heart. When he asked for Red Hawk, he was sent to the lodge of Lazy Wolf, where he found all three white men. Lazy Wolf was now smoking, as usual, and calmly reading a book. Bill Tenney lay on his stomach, with his chin in the palms of his hands and his eyes fixed constantly on the face of Red Hawk, who had purified the tepee with the smoke of sweet grass and was now praying to Sweet Medicine in a murmuring voice. In one corner crouched the Blue Bird, all eyes for the actions of the great white medicine man.

  Standing Bull himself, overcome with awe, sat down on his heels and did not venture to interrupt the prayer.

  CHAPTER 29

  Far away, and then nearer and nearer as many voices joined in the lament, the women of the Cheyennes were raising the wail again, a bloodcurdling cry of hopelessness. But inside the tent, the murmuring voice of Red Hawk was barely audible.

  At last he folded his arms on his breast, dropped his head, and seemed to fall asleep. In that posture, he remained for a long time, but there was never an interruption from the others. In that lodge there were no doubters of the miraculous po
wers of Rusty Sabin—with the exception of the skeptical Lazy Wolf.

  But pray though he might, Red Hawk heard no answering voice and saw again and again only one thing—the image of the White Horse as he had appeared through the sunset, like a racing, crested wave. If Sweet Medicine were speaking now, why should it always be to send this image?

  At last it seemed to Rusty that he understood. He rose and said briefly:

  “I must go to the White Horse. Sweet Medicine is sending me.”

  “Good!” grunted Standing Bull. “But how do you go? The moon is shining, now. The plains are as bright as day. The white men are riding with their rifles around and around the camp.”

  “I must go,” said Red Hawk. “If Sweet Medicine calls to me, he will turn the bullets away from my body. If he calls me to my death, perhaps it is time. There is no great happiness in me, O, my friend! My father has been stolen away from me. The White Horse runs free. The woman who should have come to my lodge is laughing at my name. I think I am ready to die.”

  The Blue Bird covered her head and began to weep. Her sobbing made a small, musical sound of woe.

  “Well,” said Tenney, “if you’re gonna run the lines, I’m goin’ with you, partner.”

  “And I must stay here to die with my people,” exclaimed Standing Bull. “Red Hawk, do you take this man with you?”

  Red Hawk turned with a strangely gentle smile toward big Bill Tenney.

  “He is my brother. If he must go, he must go,” said Rusty.

  Outside the tent, the pair selected, of the wretched dozens of ponies remaining, the best and the swiftest pair. Only when he was mounted, Rusty said:

  “Will the Cheyennes say that I am running away from them in the time of their trouble?”

  The voice of the Blue Bird cried softly and swiftly, “If ever a Cheyenne speaks against Red Hawk, the ground will open at his feet—fire will fall on him from the sky!”

  The larger and the stronger horse had been given to Tenney, because of his greater bulk. They rode now to the very verge of the camp, and across the skyline they saw four of the cavalrymen jogging quietly to make the rounds of the camp.