Frontier Feud

by Max Brand

  The sweat streamed down Bill Tenney’s struggling face. He was amazed, after this implied insult, to see that the girl was smiling tenderly at him.

  “Well,” she said, “some day it may be different—but now I only want to help him. You can help him, too, Bill. You go and help him.”

  “Why, he’s right here in the camp. He just went out for some shooting.”

  “I think he went to shoot a man,” said the girl. “You go—fast—to Fort Marston. Maybe you’ll find him. Don’t let him see you, but go to Fort Marston. He may need help.”

  Bill Tenney jumped up. “What man would he be shooting?” he asked.

  “When he speaks about Major Marston, there is something in his eye,” she said. Then she added, “I saw a squaw once, killing a mouse with a great club. I think that Red Hawk looks like that when he thinks about the white war chief.”

  “You think that? Then I’m goin’, and I’m goin’ fast,” said Bill Tenney, and he left the tent quickly.

  CHAPTER 35

  Under the very eyebrows of the night, and before the light of the day had been shut out entirely, Red Hawk came close to the town of Fort Marston and saw the big, square shoulders of the fort rising out of the plain. He dismounted then, and in a growth of willows near the bank of the stream he made the stallion lie down, well knowing that the White Horse would not rise again until his master summoned him.

  After that, he stripped himself and dived into the stream. The current plunged in, here, close to the shore. He had to fight it with all his lithe might, in order merely to stay even with the bank. And this made him think of that day when he had been swept down the stream with the White Horse. He thought of big Bill Tenney, also, and of how Tenney had rescued both horse and rider, and he was still thinking of Tenney when he climbed up the bank and whipped the moisture from his body.

  Afterward, he took sweet grass out of his pouch, kindled a tiny blaze, and turned it into smoke as he sprinkled the dry grass over it. In that smoke he washed his entire body, ceremonially. When he was purified—because the thought of Maisry was in his mind—he pulled on his clothes, which stuck to his damp body. When he was dressed, he went up the bank to the place where the stallion was couched, and stood for a moment beside him. His hand, blindly in the darkness, found the trembling stiffness of the ears and trailed through the mane and over the hard velvet of the neck. And the White Horse snuffed inquiringly at him.

  Then Rusty went straight to the house of Maisry Lester. Voices stirred beside the house, hardly bigger than whispers of the wind, and he hunted them down and crouched in the brush. When he made sure that it was Major Arthur Marston, he could hardly keep himself from rising and leaping and driving home his eighteen-inch knife. But he waited until he could hear, surely; for Maisry was saying:

  “I know what the town talks about.—But disgrace doesn’t mean much to me, I’ve been through such pain. Even if they take your command away from you, even if they expel you from the army entirely, that would make no difference. It’s another thing that keeps us apart, Arthur.”

  “Aye,” he said huskily, after a moment. “That other one, eh?”

  “That other one,” said she.

  A queer, quick-born hope leaped up in Red Hawk’s breast. Then he drew back and bowed his head a little, so that he could not hear what more was spoken between them.

  Eventually, he saw the major go away; yet the girl remained there, close to the wall, almost unseen.

  Red Hawk stood up then. He gripped the handle of the great knife until some of the strength from his arm flowed into his heart. After that he came close to her and said, clearly:

  “I have come to speak to you—not to take you. Don’t be afraid.”

  There was only a wall of silence to greet him, blank as the wall of the house. He came a little closer. He said, harshly:

  “I didn’t come like a dog to whine around your feet, for I know that you are a bad woman. The Cheyenne girls are better. When I got the green beetle, and knew that you had thrown me away from you, I was sad. When I had the letter that you sent by Blue Bird, telling me that it was easy to forget, I tried to hate you. But I am not a very strong heart. Instead of hating you, I kept on being sad. And when I came near this town, just now, I wanted to speak to you again. So I am here, speaking—Tell me again that it is easy to forget!”

  She went right up to him. An angry man might have moved like that. She went right up to him and stood but a few inches away. “Did Blue Bird tell you that it was easy for me to forget?” she asked.

  “She would not say such a thing. There is pity in her,” said Rusty Sabin. “She told me that there was love in your eyes when you spoke of me; but after I had read your letter, I knew that it was only laughter.”

  “Do you know what my letter said? Shall I tell you? It said that I loved you, and I waited for you.”

  “I am not blind. I read the words!” he declared.

  “Then they were not my words,” said the girl, calmly.

  That was what shocked him—the calmness with which she said it. He could not disbelieve her. He seemed to be touching her with a thousand hands. He was staring through the darkness, and he could see her eyes glimmering. There was nothing but truth in them. He knew that. There never had been a thing but truth in them.

  “Sweet Medicine,” he prayed, faintly, “written words are but the foolish shadows of the truth. The real voice speaks out of the heart. Tell me now that I can believe her!”

  “Rusty!” said the girl.

  The strength went all out of him then. He put his hands out and rested them on her shoulders. He bowed his head beside her head.

  “Hai!” he whispered. “I am as weak as an old man, when you speak my name. It drives knives through me. If you are saying the thing that is not so, still continue to speak it. I am happy—and weak!”

  “Do you believe me?” she asked.

  “I have two brothers. Tenney and Standing Bull. I am ashamed, but I believe you as I believe them!”

  She began to laugh. There was a flutter and tremor in the sound that burned his soul like a shaking flame, quivering up in the wind.

  “Rusty!” she said again.

  The mind went out of him, after his strength.

  “This is good!” was all he could say.

  She pressed close to him. “Rusty!” she said, once more.

  “This is very good!” said Rusty Sabin. “I feel as if the Sky People were laughing and happy all about us. I feel as if you are my squaw, and as if I am your man.”

  “It will be true,” said the girl.

  “I feel as if our child is already in your arms,” said Rusty Sabin.

  She answered, “Ah, what a long time he has been in my heart!”

  “I believe,” said Rusty. “In you I believe. In you I trust.—Sweet Medicine, give me a greater strength to trust you forever.”

  There was a sort of blasphemy in this. She closed her eyes. He was not very much taller, but a greatness swept out from him like a rising smoke and humbled her.

  “What you read in my letter was wrong. All that I wrote there was love!” she said.

  “Hush!” answered Rusty. “Talking will not say it! There are not words to fit it. I would as soon try to tie a saddle on the wind. I would as soon try to make the wild flowers breathe out of the palm of my bare hand. I would as soon try to build the mountains and level the plains as to tell you what is in me.—It is in you, also. The Sky People, they breathe about us. They breathe as you breathe. There is one thing for me to do. Afterwards I shall come back to you.”

  “Come back to me!” she said.

  “I shall come quickly. There is still blood between us. I shall clean it away, and then I shall come back to you. Ah, my brothers, I am leaving you—and yet I am happy!”

  After that, he drew away from her a little. She held up her face, but he knew nothing of what that meant. To an Indian, a caress is in the eyes and the voice.

  “Wait a moment,” said the girl, closi
ng her eyes. “I want to say something—”

  She stood there for an instant, but when she opened her eyes and began speaking he was gone. She ran forward a few steps and called out, softly. The darkness swirled like water before her face.

  She breathed of fear, and it choked her. He was gone, and she was left teetering, falling forward from a height and into nothingness. If he could be reached . . .

  At that, she screamed out his name. The blood rushed up into her head, and the beating of her heart shook her. She told herself that out of the distance he had answered, faintly; but she knew that that was wrong.

  Her father came rushing around the corner of the cabin. He stumbled into her and was frightened; then he caught her up close.

  “Maisry!” he said. “What’s the matter? Why did you call out for Rusty like that? Why did you yell out like that just now?—Rusty isn’t here. Come inside, Maisry, darling. Let me help you.—Rusty isn’t here.—Maisry, what’s the matter?”

  He got her into the house, and her mother jumped up as swiftly as a child, so that her sewing spilled all over the floor.

  “Ah, Richard!” she whispered, staring at Maisry. “Ah, God! What’s the matter?”

  “She called—she was calling for Rusty—out in the dark of the night,” said Richard Lester. “Look at me, Maisry. Do you see me, dear?—Would you please look at me, Maisry?”

  “Stand away from her, Dick,” said Mrs. Lester, approaching the girl with both hands held out and her face terrible with fear. “Let me have her.—Maisry, I want you to lie down, darling girl. Everything is going to be all right.”

  “Don’t!” said the girl. “Don’t talk to me!—I want to be alone. I don’t want you—”

  Her father took her by the shoulders and shook her a little.

  “Maisry!” he gasped. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re going to have Rusty. We’re going to find him and tell him. We’re going to get Rusty for you. You’re going to be happy—always. Do you hear me?—We’re both sorry! We only want you to be happy—”

  She heard her mother say,

  “Get some hot water, Dick. I’ll watch her and stay with her.—Ah, God of mercy—!”

  Then she came stealing up and stood just a bit behind Maisry. She began to wring her hands.

  Maisry said, “I’m not going to scream any more. I was out there talking with him—”

  “Yes, darling, yes!” said her mother in a rapid, trembling voice. “Of course you were talking with him. Of course he was out there. I know he was out there. I—I could hear him talking. And everything is going to be all right.”

  “Then he seemed to disappear,” said Maisry. “He seemed to go out into the night.—Was it something I dreamed? Am I going crazy? Was he really there?”

  “He was there. Of course he was there. I heard him. And it’s all right,” said Mrs. Lester.

  Maisry stood with one hand against the wall. She kept her eyes closed and her head leaning against her hand.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m not going to do anything. Women never do anything. They just wait. I can wait, too.—God keep me from hating. I’m only going to stay—and wait—and wish I were dead!”

  CHAPTER 36

  Major Marston, who knew that he was to meet Rusty Sabin in the dawn of the next morning, up Culver Creek, consulted the practical side of his very sound wits. He was to meet Rusty, and one of them was to die; but the major saw no particular reason why the dead man should be himself. He did not fear Rusty’s strength or Rusty’s skill with weapons; but he argued that Rusty was a fanatic and that it was as foolish to tackle a fanatic, man to man, as it would have been to try to handle a madman.

  During the night, therefore, the major left the fort and met three men with whom an appointment had been made the day before. Poison was what the major needed to use, and therefore the three were the purest poison that he could find. He had known about them for a long time, and they pleased him, in a curious way, because they were so perfectly evil. They were three brothers who bore the name of Lavier, and ever since their childhood they had done everything together. They had hunted and trapped and stolen in company. Three times, they had all taken Indian wives in different tribes, and three times they had left their squaws. Together they had made enemies; together they had murdered them. They were frontier spawn—Dan, Bob, and Lew Lavier—and their cunning combined in their souls all the evil of the whites and all the evil of the Indians, as well as a certain special hellishness that was their own brewing.

  When he found them under the dark of the tree, he broke right into his thread, saying:

  “I’m going up into Culver Creek, at dawn. I want you to be there. Rusty Sabin is going to meet me there to fight a duel. Before he starts fighting, I want you to fill him full of lead.”

  He waited a moment. Dan Lavier, the eldest of the three, parted his lips with a smacking sound.

  “How much?” he asked.

  “A hundred dollars,” said the major.

  “A hundred ain’t enough.”

  “A hundred dollars in gold.”

  “Maybe that’ll be all right. Gimme the money.”

  “I only brought fifty with me. You’ll get the rest when Rusty’s dead.”

  “What kind of fools you maybe think we are?—You pay now, or we don’t budge.”

  “I wouldn’t cheat you boys. I’m not stupid enough to cheat you. I don’t want to go to sleep with a bullet through the head, some day.”

  The three Laviers laughed, making snarling sounds high in their noses.

  “All right,” said Dan. “Gimme the fifty, then.”

  The major counted out five ten-dollar gold pieces.

  He made them clink, one on the other. He talked a little more with them.

  “I’d be scared of him, maybe, too,” said one of the Laviers. “But him not expecting us, we’ll kill him dead easy.—So long!”

  The major went back to the fort, and slept like a child until his orderly wakened him. The night was still black when he dressed. He put on warm clothes.

  In spite of the Laviers, he might have to do some fighting before the morning was over, and there is nothing like warmth to assure the steadiness of the hand.

  His horse was ready for him, and so he rode out at once toward the mouth of Culver Creek, three miles to the northwest.

  * * * *

  Big Bill Tenney had not dared to enter the town of Fort Marston. Instead, he had skirted around it, cautiously; so cautiously that, unseen, he was able to spot the White Horse in the distance as it left the place, carrying Rusty toward his meeting in the valley. And Tenney followed on.

  Now that he had luckily discovered Rusty, he bided his time before coming up to his friend; and he got a sort of relish, a strange happiness, out of the thought that in a sense he was the disposer of the fate, the guardian of the life of the great medicine man of the Cheyennes.

  What was in Tenney’s breast he could not recognize. For, plainly, he had nothing of a practical value to gain. The girl had begged him to come, and yet she would never reward him except with friendship. The rest of his pleasure would be in service!

  But when he thought of this, he had to shake his great head, amazed. By nature, he was a taker, not a giver. If he followed another man, it ought to be for pay or for vengeance. Instead, he was keeping this trail, to whatever dangers it might lead, in the hope that Rusty Sabin might have added cause to speak a few words to him in that gentle voice—words of praise—words of happiness.

  Bill Tenney’s mind was heavily involved in these thoughts as he kept after the White Horse, but he had to drop farther and farther behind because, as the dawnlight increased, it was more and more likely that his leader might turn and spot him.

  He made out the place where the White Horse paused, and then dipped over the edge of the cañon wall. When, in turn, he came to the same place, he found beneath him a pitch, down which he would never have dared to venture with the mustang he was riding. It was the finest horse in
Lazy Wolf’s string, yet it could not be trusted down such a pitch. Even a mountain sheep might have grown dizzy here! Farther up the valley, there were other places easier in descent.

  He was about to go to one of these when he saw that Rusty had dismounted, on the bottom of the valley, and was advancing on foot. And looking down toward the other end of Culver Cañon, he saw Major Marston in person, also on foot, with a horse left well behind him. Rifle in hand, he was marching toward Rusty Sabin.

  The heart leaped in big Bill Tenney’s breast. In an instant, he was off his pony and drawing a sure bead on the major. Then something in his mind made him jerk up the muzzle of the gun.

  They were about to fight a duel, those two bitter enemies. And the major, since he had lost his fame, his honor, his good name in every way, would now lose his life as well. But why should it be taken by a rifleman lying at a secure distance? Was it not better to trust all to Rusty, and to the machinations of the mighty spirit, Sweet Medicine?

  That sense of awe which had troubled Bill Tenney more than once, recently, flowed through him again. He began to smile, as he looked down on the wide shoulders, the tapering body, the long, red hair of Rusty Sabin. Red Hawk had come like an Indian to what might be his final field. From his head flowed a great ceremonial dress of feathers. His body, naked to the waist, was so brilliantly painted that even at that distance it startled Tenney’s eye. Rusty was all Cheyenne, as he prepared for the fight.

  * * * *

  At sixty or seventy paces, the major had halted. Red Hawk paused in turn. They stood for a moment with their rifles at the ready.—And now for the stroke that would lay the major on the earth!