Brand, Max - 1925

by Beyond the Outposts (v2. 1)

  I was in that humor when I found the tribe of Standing Bear at last. But they were now in the bosom of their nation. Two great bands under famous chiefs, hearing of the end of Bald Eagle, had joined Standing Bear's men to participate in the celebrations. The feasting and the firewater filled the day with sleep and the night with hideous riot.

  They greeted me like the God-sent deliverer of their race. Had there been a less deep melancholy resting on me, I should have been a happy man, indeed. But, as it was, I hated their noise. The entire lot of them, drunk and sober, lined the way with yelling as they led me to a great teepee and made me look inside. It was stacked with rifles, ammunition, meat, with furs and beadwork by the hundred weight. Here was more Indian wealth than I had ever seen before at a stroke of the eye. It was all mine. It was my share of the loot they had swept in during the raid of the Pawnee village that had followed, as a most natural course of events, the destruction of Bald Eagle's chosen men. But this was only a part. Hundreds of the best horses were mine. And, if I were not contented with what I had, I should have more - as much more as I could ask and they could give. This was told me by Standing Bear while Three Buck Elk stood by, grinning and nodding like a happy child, and Sitting Wolf watched me with a trembling delight.

  I had to make them a speech, of course. I told them that I was happy to have led them into success, that fortune had helped me, that Sitting Wolf had really delivered the decisive blow, but now I was going back to my own people. I had spent my last day among them. As for this heap of wealth, it should go to Zintcallasappa.

  Sitting Wolf touched my arm almost timidly. "Brother," he said in the deep silence that followed this announcement, "Zintcallasappa has fallen asleep, and she will waken no more."

  I remembered her thin face, her great dark eyes when I last saw her, and a new stab of sorrow reached my heart. It is strange, these things that unnerve us. I had borne the loss of my father - with an aching heart, God knows - but without a trace of unmanliness. This second and smaller blow brought tears to my eyes. I pressed my hand across them. The salt tears worked a way through.

  Sitting Wolf cast his blanket over my head and led me away through that host of warriors, all silent with shame because so famous a warrior should have proved such a woman at the end. He led me to his own teepee, for since the battle he had led an independent life, had been voted a brave, and had been made worthy of a brave's privileges by the entire tribe. There he sat down beside me, with his head turned a little away lest he should see my shameful grief. If there had been any working of pride in me, I suppose I should have controlled myself well enough. But there was no pride left in me. I was broken completely.

  The sixteen-year-old warrior laid a hand on my arm. He said with a voice as gentle as a woman's: "Dear brother, if the Dakotas wonder when they see Black Bear weep, I, Sitting Wolf, do not wonder. I understand, and my heart is sad. But all the Sioux are stricken with grief, for they have heard Black Bear say that he is turning back to his own people. Now I see the shadow of my father and my uncle in front of my teepee, and I know what they have come to say. Shall they enter, my brother?"

  I made shift to dry my eyes, damning my weakness heartily. Then I motioned to Sitting Wolf, and he opened the flap of the teepee. In strode the two chiefs, wrapped formally in their blankets, staring at me with a sort of fear, as though they could not understand the sickness that had taken hold upon me. Standing Bear was the first to break the silence.

  "Friend," he said, "the Dakotas have heard Black Bear speak, and they have seen that he is angry. Therefore, they are sad. But they know why he is unhappy. Twice he has saved my brother's son from death, and at last he has raised his paw and struck out of the air the great Bald Eagle who slew us like little lambs in the coming of spring. He has done all this, and last of all he has ridden alone onto the prairie. No man could follow him. The wind stopped and watched him dart across the prairie faster than an arrow, like a bullet that never grows weary. At last he found Bald Eagle. Three great warriors were with that mighty chief. They turned back, one by one, to stop Black Bear, and each fell and was left to make a scalp for the Dakotas and a prey for the wolves."

  He made a little pause here. The rascals had trailed me to the spot where I had disappeared across the river. So they had seen the dead Pawnees whom I had met. Standing Bear went on.

  "Bald Eagle flew fast, but faster flew Black Bear. At last Bald Eagle turned. First they fought with rifles, and the bullets turned aside, fearing to strike such mighty chiefs. They stood closer and fought with their revolvers that speak many times, but still the bullets dared not strike. They leaped upon one another with their knives, but the steel would not bite. And then they closed on one another. Dreadful was the grip of Bald Eagle. Where his talons held the arms of Black Bear, the skin and the flesh were torn away."

  He pointed in proof to the big, ugly red fire scars upon my wrists. Three Buck Elk could not prevent a shudder of wonder and of admiration, but the orator went on: "Though Bald Eagle was mighty, still mightier was Black Bear, for he fought for the glory of the Dakotas. He took Bald Eagle by the throat. He strangled the wicked chief. He carried him to the smooth-sliding black river and gave his body to the water.

  "Then Black Bear lay for a long time in the hills, resting, weak and sick, for his wounds were great... very great. But at last he was healed, and he came back to the Dakotas. He found them singing and drinking and feasting. The wealth of the Pawnees was their wealth. They had all that the heart could wish, and each brave was rich. But they took Black Bear to a single little teepee and told him that what was in it was his. Yet he had given them everything that gladdened their hearts. His own heart was broken, and he went to the teepee of his brother, Sitting Wolf, and he covered his head, saying that the Sioux are dogs and the sons of dogs."

  Here I interrupted. I wanted to tell him that I had not beaten Bald Eagle, but I knew that there was no use in saying such a thing. I would have to give proofs, and they already were sure of their knowledge, for they were aware that he was not among the Pawnees any longer. I could not speak of that subject, however, it made me too sick at heart. I told Standing Bear that they had given me more than my heart could have asked. But I must go back to my own kind. I wished to take with me the son of Zintcallasappa and one old squaw to take care of the child. Also, I would take with me the wealth the Dakotas had awarded me, not for my own sake so much as the sake of the child of Rising Sun.

  It was a bitter stroke to both of the chiefs. I had brought them prosperity before, and they wanted more of it. They pointed out to me that we had barely made a beginning - that there were many, many more Pawnees - all villains, all horse thieves. When we had wiped out the Pawnees, there were other great tribes worthy of our wars. We would become sole lords of the prairies. How very little he tempted me. I simply shook my head and asked that the boy be brought to me. Sitting Wolf made a sign to them, and they ceased all persuasion at once.

  The boy was brought and an old squaw with him who was to be his nurse and declared that she would gladly go with Black Bear and be a mother to the orphan. I hardly had a word for her; my eyes were so entirely filled with the face of the boy. I have said that he had blue eyes and golden hair. There was white blood in his mother, and in the boy all the Indian traces disappeared except, perhaps, that his skin was a trifle dark for such brilliant hair and eyes. In a word, he was the bright image of what Chuck Morris himself must have been at that age. He was a gay little mite, already toddling around, falling down every step or two, and then pulling himself up again. I took him on my knee and made a silent vow that if Morris disowned him - and how could he help doing that if he wished to marry Mary Kearney? - I myself should be a father to him.

  THE HEIR OF RISING SUN

  The next morning the preparations were made quickly. A hundred willing hands packed my belongings which doubled or trebled in amount before the packing was ended, for I think that every woman, child, and man in the tribe made some sort of a donation when
it was known that I was fixed in my intention to leave them. Then a number of young braves volunteered to help me drive the herd of horses toward the fort. An old, abandoned trader's wagon was repaired for the use of the squaw and the boy. Then we started out.

  The whole tribe came out and accompanied us for a few miles. Then they said farewell. Sitting Wolf was very much broken up. At the last moment he wanted to accompany me, but I told him that we were parting for the moment only, and that he and I would see much of one another from time to time. If it had not been for this promise, the whole lot of them would have insisted on all sorts of formal ceremonies before they let me go. By noon the last of them had disappeared across the horizon, and my caravan hurried on toward the fort. We were twenty-five days in reaching it, the last five days through a very steady fall of snow, so that we were glad enough when, one evening, we made out the dim lights of the fort in front of us. We camped in the snow that night. The next morning I pitched my camp on the edge of the scattered town. The Indians who had accompanied me started home, each with a man-size present under his belt. Before I went to find Chuck Morris, first of all I visited the store and bought a good suit of clothes, from boots to hat, a complete equipment. I pur chased a new saddle for White Smoke. I visited a barber and had my long, shaggy hair cut properly short for the first time in many years. When I looked at my new self in the mirror, the wild man of the prairies had disappeared. In his place was a sober-looking young man with a touch of gray at his temples. In this fashion I went to Chuck.

  It was as easy to find him at Fort Kempton as it was to find a full moon in a clear sky. Everyone knew him. He was more important there than the commandant of the fort himself. In the few months since I last saw him, his little storeroom had grown into a big emporium. He conducted a double business. On the one hand, he supplied the traders who sent long caravans over the prairies. On the other hand, he traded directly with the Indians who chose to come into the fort itself. I was told that he was busy when I asked to see him. He was talking important business; he could not be disturbed. I wrote down my name and told the clerk to take it in.

  "He'll cut my head off," said the boy.

  "I'll put it back on again, then," I said and grinned at him so confidently that he carried the bit of paper into the office.

  Morris came lunging out at once, a brand new Morris. His trousers were so fashionably tight that one could see the big double bulge of the thigh muscles in front of his leg. His boots shone like polished ebony. His coat was like a glove upon his back, and his throat was wrapped in a snowy stock. Altogether, he might have stood for the portrait of a duke. But, though I was quite overawed, he was as hearty as ever. He took me into his office, got rid of two weather-bitten traders in a word or two, and sat me down for a talk. I could hardly hear him at first, I was too busy staring at the thick, rich carpeting on the floor, the shining desk, and the numerous pictures on the wall.

  "Good Lord, Chuck," I broke out. "This cost a fortune!"

  "It did," he admitted, "but I like it. Besides, it's a good investment. I found that I could put my prices up after I had a room like this. It looks like success... it is success... and the traders are impressed. That's what counts. Not what a man is, but what he seems to be. That's business. We'll talk about that afterward. Thank the Lord you've come back to me. And I see by your clothes that you've come to stay."

  "I'm no longer a Sioux," I admitted.

  "We'll talk about your business future in a moment. First I want to know the truth of all these stories that have been rolling into the fort. The colonel was about to take out an expedition against those thieving Pawnees when he heard a great war chief had sprung up among the Sioux and smashed the cream of the Pawnees to smithereens and killed the great Bald Eagle himself. The name of that chief, as we have heard it, is Black Bear. Lew, the game went through, then? You did beat them?"

  I told him the whole story in ten seconds. I simply said: "Bald Eagle turned out to be my father. I tried to get him to come back to civilization with me or let me go on with him. He did neither. He simply disappeared. And that's part of the reason I'm here."

  He was always quick to respond to another man's sorrow. I saw the tears spring up in his eyes. He even had to get up and walk about the room for a moment. Then he put a hand on my shoulder and said: "Old fellow, all I can do is to try to help you forget. Now the next thing is to know the other reason that brought you here."

  No matter how cruel he had been to her, it was hard to face him with the truth. I managed to say: "Chuck, I brought your boy in with me."

  He turned the gray of ashes. "Zintcallasappa is dead?" he blurted out at me.

  "She is dead."

  "May heaven forgive me," he said.

  "Amen," I said with such solemnity that he started.

  "After all," said Chuck, "what else could I do? I couldn't be an Indian the rest of my life. I... I took care of her after I left."

  I made no effort to answer him. It was his business, not mine, and I have never had any sympathy with people who fight the battles that ought to be left to the conscience of other men. Morris began to frown.

  "And I'll handle the boy, too," he said.

  Here I broke in with: "If you want the boy, take him. If you don't want him around... TO be glad to have him."

  The frown left him. He looked at me with the happiest smile in the world.

  "Would you do that, Lew?"

  "Gladly."

  "If I had him...even in the background... there would have to be explanations. And...."

  "Your wife might not care to know about it?" I asked, looking fixedly at him.

  He shook his head. "I haven't married her yet," he said. "And, between you and me, if the truth about this leaked out, I'd be ruined with them. They're an old New England family. Proud as Satan. Well, you've seen Kearney, and you ought to know. He hasn't stopped talking about his last meeting with you. He says you took hold of him as a man might take hold of a child. He's a rare good old fellow, under that high-handed manner of his, and he swears by you. I told him a few things that were not against you, of course. But this Pawnee war of yours has been the finishing touch. He says you're a man in a million.

  "`But his manners, Father,' Mary says and turns up her pretty nose. God bless her.

  "`Manners be damned,' says John Kearney. `A hero doesn't have to have manners.'

  "He will treat you like a son when you meet him again, Lew. As a matter of fact, what made him like me was because I beat him in a business deal. He despises the weak... that's all. But now about the boy...Lew, you will be my savior if you can manage to get him out of my way. One hint, one whisper about such a thing in my past, would be the end of me with Mary. The absolute end. You see, I'm none too strong with her. She likes me. With her father egging her on to the match, she's become engaged to me. But she keeps putting off the wedding date most damnably. I'm constantly worried for fear something may happen. Every day I have to handle her with gloves."

  I said to him slowly: "Why, Chuck, if she doesn't really love you, of course you don't want to marry her."

  "Don't want to marry her?" he cried. "Are you mad? But you've only had a glimpse of her. Oh, I tell you that she's rare. Marry her. I'd steal her with a band of Indians, if I thought that there were no other way. I'd do ten murders, if I thought it would help me to get her."

  He did not say this in a rage of emotion but in a cold and settled way that sent a chill through my blood, because I knew that he had not overstated things a whit.

  He went on: "Now the very first thing, dear old man, is to get the youngster out of the way. Don't look at me as if I were a ghost. I mean.. .take the boy away. I'll supply all the money, of course. We'll take him East, say, and put him in some school. He'll be supported like a prince. But I'll have to trust to you to arrange matters."

  I nodded.

  "When can you start?"

  "At once, I suppose."

  "Will you do it?"

  "Yes."

 
; "God bless you, Lew. When you told me that you had brought the boy to the fort, you turned me to ice. Because something was apt to leak out. You can say that it's the son of a trader who was murdered by the Indians. Say anything. But start soon... soon! Go anywhere you want with him. Place him well. Send me the bill. No, take cash enough with you... here."

  He tore open a safe that stood in the corner of his office and thrust two heavy bags of gold into my hands.

  "You'll want to see him, I suppose?" I asked.

  "See him! Damnation, man, why should I want to see him? And be connected with him through gossip in that way? No, no, no! I wish him all the happiness in the world, and I hope that I never lay eyes on him again."

  It was rather hard talk, no matter how I tried to look at it. I stood up, very thoughtful, and Chuck followed me to the door. He had his hand on my shoulder all the way, muttering, "You'll be back in a month, at the most. Leave everything with me. I'll sell your horses and the rest of your stuff for twice what you could get for it. I'll have it all cleaned up for you. In the meantime don't let old Kearney see you. He's sure to try it when he knows you've come. Don't let him see you, and don't let him see the boy. Lew, if you love me, get that boy out of the fort within the hour. Ride White Smoke to death. Every minute is precious. Now, hurry, hurry."