by Max Brand
Chapter Twenty-Five
Major Marston liked round numbers, and that was why he had exactly one hundred officers and men behind him when he started out the next morning. He took the van, and beside him rode his voluntary and unpaid guide, Blue Bird. She, feeling the eyes of the soldiers search her, was a little pleased and a little disgusted.
The major talked to her a good deal. At first, like the others, he had in his eyes the look of a hunter, but the major was a man of intelligence, and he soon changed his manner toward her. He took on a serious air. He asked her questions that flattered her intelligence, and he listened with a keen attention and respect. It might be that now and again he said the thing that was not so, but this was characteristic of the whites, as all Indians knew. The whites had double tongues and they spoke with two meanings.
But certainly he was most interested in whatever she had to tell him about Red Hawk. And that was the theme nearest and dearest to her. She could dwell on a thousand points. But above all, she loved to enlarge on the time when Red Hawk, alone, had gone into the Sacred Valley and dared to confront Sweet Medicine in the cave on the cliff. The vastness of that daring made her pale. Then she told how Red Hawk had returned to the tribe with the broken arrow, and how he had made his famous chant before all the Cheyennes.
“Could that have been simply a common owl, and not Sweet Medicine at all, that Rusty Sabin found in the cave?” asked the major, controlling his desire to smile.
She made a fine gesture. She merely laughed to dismiss the suggestion.
“But what was that other thing?” asked the major. “Isn’t it true that Rusty Sabin was afraid to go through the initiation when his time came to be a brave?”
Her face clouded, but only for a moment. “That was because Sweet Medicine wanted to lead him away from the tribe,” she explained. “Sweet Medicine himself was driven out of the tribe, as you know. And so Red Hawk wandered. But when he came back, he was riding White Horse. Hai! How the boys screamed with happiness, because he was such a great man and belonged to the Cheyennes. The breath went out of the women. They could only cover their mouths and stare at such a man.”
In her delighted eyes he read, easily, the secret of her heart, and hatred for Rusty Sabin stabbed him again.
The pace of the march was not very fast. A hundred men cannot travel like one or two. They were far from the Cheyenne camp when they had to halt for the night. The major picked out a good site for the camp. It was in the hollow lowland near a creek, sheltered at the back by a high bank.
Blue Bird, as camp was being pitched, unsaddled her mustang, sidelined it as usual, and sat down on the bank to watch the proceedings. The little dog-tents amused her. So did the utensils for cooking. So also the heavy rations that the men produced from their saddlebags. Already there were ten fires blazing unreasonably high, and there were squatting groups of men, cooking, at each fire.
Why, the smoke rolled away in sufficient volume to have told watchers ten miles away that here were men at camp. The major saw her laughing, as he brought to her a well-filled iron pan, heaped with hot food. He had filled her coffee half full of sugar, and, when she drank it, she had to cry out with excited pleasure. She was then willing to tell him why she had laughed.
“Look,” she said. “When a Cheyenne war party starts out, the braves carry a little jerked meat, some parched corn in a pouch, and that is all. Sometimes they chew a little corn, and that is their food for the day. Sometimes they only pull up their belts, and that is their food for the day. Sometimes they kill game, and then they feast. But for two hundred warriors there would not be such a smoke as the white men make for ten soldiers.”
The major nodded. It was true that the Indians could fade away from pursuit, because they traveled skeleton light. Their naked skins could be coat and overcoat, and in a pinch they could feed on field mice and roots.
“You shall sleep in a tent near my tent,” he told her. “You can see my tent now . . . the big one down there. You shall have a little tent beside it, and then you will be safe.”
“I shall be safe enough when the darkness comes,” said Blue Bird.
And when the darkness came, she was not to be found. She had slipped away to a short distance from the camp, and there, wrapped in a horse blanket, she stretched out. Weariness made the ground a soft bed for her.
Blue Bird, out of a sound sleep, was awakened late in the night by the sound of beating hoofs. The moon glinted against her eyes a she sat up and saw a dim ghost come wavering toward her over the plains, followed by dusky forms. It was a whole herd of horses, she made out presently, and far, far away, behind the rattling of the hoof beats, she heard a pouring murmur that seemed to vibrate through the ground even at her feet. The noise worried her. It was like a thin, distant thunder that never stopped. Somewhere before she had heard it. But where?
The sight of the horses chained her eyes. And presently the ghostly form of the leader grew more defined. He was swinging on, straight toward her. A depression in the ground half covered him, but he emerged again out of the gloom like a leaping fish, and she saw that it was White Horse! Awe weakened her knees and made her drop down, for this was the horse that belonged to Red Hawk, and therefore to Sweet Medicine. This was the stallion that ten thousand hunters, white and red, had chased for thousands of miles, over plains and mountains, until Red Hawk went out like a god and laid his hand on the neck of the charger.
It seemed to her that the ghost of the man she loved was swaying on the back of White Horse, borne along by the long, effortless stride.
Behind him the heads of the herd bobbed rapidly up and down as they measured his prodigious paces with their shorter strides.
White Horse was hardly fifty feet from her, blinded by the glory of his own kingship and his speed and strength, before he was aware of her. He shot suddenly to one side then, and the herd streamed after him—a hundred—no, ten scores of horses!
She laughed with a strange sort of joy as she saw the monster go leaping away into the darkness. His herd was scattering too much to please him. In the distance, she saw him redouble his speed and turn into a streak that swept around to the rear, where he attacked the laggards and made them bunch up closer toward the leaders. Aye, for he had the mind of a chief, the mind that neglects not the least of his followers.
Then the herd vanished from view.
She was still peering through the moon haze after the departed herd, when the noise that she had marked before began to roll closer toward her. A low, dark bank, like a cloud sweeping along the face of the ground, was moving out of the south, toward her. Perhaps it was this that had driven White Horse through the night. Gradually she saw the cloud extending until it seemed to lie for miles to either side.
And now, thin and dim, she saw the small quiverings of moon shine, here and there. Her brain awakened from its dream that instant. She should have recognized the thing long, long before. It was a stampede of buffalo. It was one of those ocean-like herds cast into motion by a panic as strange as the powers that draw the sea in its tides. And now this immensity of thundering hoofs was pouring straight down on the camp of the soldiers. The mere forefronts of the host would be sufficient to smash the camp flat and trample to a red stain all the human lives.
She turned and raced with all her might toward the bank of the stream. She jerked up the short doeskin skirt and knotted the end of it at her waist. She ran like a boy—like the fleetest of Indian boys, with her body erect and her breath deeply drawn. And she could run very swiftly.
She reached the edge of the bank, leaped ten feet to the lower level, landed lightly, cat-like, rolled to her feet, and sent her scream into every sleeping ear.
“Buffalo! Buffalo! The stampede! White faces! Waken, waken! Brainless, stupid, sleeping calves, jump up before you die! The stampede is on you!”
But would they hear her?
The soldiers came running, half dressed, half naked, rifles in their hands. The major rushed like a wise and brave man s
traight for the center of the disturbance. Blue Bird caught him by the arm and dragged him up the bank, behind him a frightened stream of soldiers.
Now they could see what was happening. The moon was bright enough to show the whole face of the picture, though the rear of that thundering mass was lost in an uprush of dust, as if in smoke. The front rank of the host was composed of huge bull buffalos, humpbacked, running with their bearded heads low, their horns jerking up with each stride, and the noise of the hoofs was like a great bellowing voice, as though the earth had split apart and was uttering a cry.
“Shoot them down or you’re lost!” screamed the girl. “Fire! Fire!” She seemed to forget her own safety. She was only a woman, and these were men—so many strong men, even if their skins were only white.
The major went out two steps before the rest. He was perfectly calm. His shouting voice cut through the uproar, giving orders. Twenty men were all that he had with him, properly armed.
“Stand ready!” he commanded. “Take aim. Shoot straight past me when I give the word. Shoot at the center of the herd. You on my right, shoot first when I give the word. On my left, shoot when I raise my hand again. . . .”
Then he waited. Courage, for that moment, made the hypocrite and the liar seem noble in the eyes of the girl.
He shouted, lifting a hand, and the first volley of shots struck the front of the herd like so many pebbles hurled against a cliff. Two or three bulls—no more—tumbled headlong. The places where they fell were marked by long succeeding ripples behind them, as the remainder of the herd flowed like water over the obstacles.
It seemed to Blue Bird that the breathing of the bulls was already in her face, like the spume and dash of spray before a wave. The horns, rattling together, had a metallic sound. An irresistible river of fear was pouring down on them when the second half of the soldiers in line fired, and then all of them, of a single accord, started leaping and shouting and waving their guns.
The buffalo divided, not slowly but as though the point where the three bulls had dropped in a heap was the head of a great rock that made the currents sheer off to either side. They spilled out at a sharp angle and seemed to increase their speed.
Dust, as though driven by a heavy wind, poured out into the faces of the watchers, and the rank, moist smell of the herd closed over then. But the thundering death had been diverted. Still widening the gap, the great herd sloped around the sides of the camp. They shot off the high bank in a steady torrent, many buffalos breaking their necks in the fall, many toppling and being trampled to death by the succeeding ranks, until the bank was beveled off by the compacted surface of the dead and hammered bodies over which the other thousands passed. The front ranks dashed the water of the creek to spray. The stream was dammed up by swiftly moving masses of flesh.
Up the farther bank the swarm mounted, with speed that seemed undiminished. A thick haze rolled overhead and like a little cloud made the stars small and the moon dim and lifeless. For an endless time the soldiers watched, anxiously, dreading lest the later masses of the herd should close in and sweep the camp away in the flood. But always the rear ranks followed their leaders, and still the heap of three dead buffalos made the exact point of the division from which the two halves swept away, very much like the point at which the long hair of a woman is parted.
At last, gaps appeared in the throng. The last few hundreds came scattering, and sheered away in their turn and were lost from view across the stream. Only the departing thunder of the hoofs rolled back to the command of the major.
For a brief moment, then, he looked about him to find the girl and thank her, because he knew that she had saved him as well as all the rest.
Lost in a buffalo stampede. That would have been a foolish epitaph to end such a life as his. And the girl had prevented it. He could at least thank her with a string of beads, tomorrow.
“You can sleep in the supply tent,” he told her. “It will be day before very long.”
He opened the flaps of the big tent, around the sides of which were stored the supplies from the pack horses that accompanied the march. And pulling down a stack of blankets, he told her to make herself comfortable on them; she was stretched out upon them with a sigh of weariness even before he left the tent.
Half an hour later, the major went back to the provision tent and opened the flap, listening until he was sure that she slept. When he was confident of that, it was still difficult to find Blue Bird, and by light touches to locate the pouch at her side.
Within it, he felt the paper of the letter, and drew it out, hushing the noisy crinkling by the stealthy movements of his hand. Sweat was running on his face before he was outside the tent again, Then he went to his own tent and read the letter, written with a big, rushing hand that showed the words had tumbled headlong out of Maisry’s heart.
Rusty, dear,
I didn’t understand. I thought the major said you wanted the scarab back because you had lost your luck with it. How could you doubt me? Send it back to me—bring it back to me so that I can have you with it. The days have gone like lead walking on my heart. Come soon, and, if you love me half as much as I love you, I’ll always be the happiest girl in the world.
Maisry
When the major had finished this letter, freezing cold puckered his forehead and dimmed his eyes. He could see only one picture—Rusty Sabin facing a firing squad. Then, from his pack, he got out some white paper, measured it by the letter, and cut it to the right size. After that he practiced the scrip for some time. He had a good, steady hand, and a natural talent as a penman. Presently he felt that he was able to make a forgery good enough to pass the unsuspicious eye of Rusty Sabin. Then he wrote:
Dear Rusty,
Why not try to do a little forgetting? It hasn’t been hard for me, and it ought to be easy for you. Besides, you have Blue Bird. Isn’t she enough?
You and I would never get on. Now that I’ve had time to think, I see that I never could like Indians—even white ones.
Have a good time with the green beetle.
Maisry
The major, after he had finished the writing, resealed the envelope and stole back to the provision tent. He could hear the soft breathing of the girl in the darkness. A fragrance, thin and dim and pure, rose from her, and a strange feeling of pity came over the major, a queer regret for all the things that he was not.
Then he went to waken his two captains, and took them into his own tent.
Blue Bird, not a minute after she had been left, awakened suddenly, with a fast-beating heart. She had that intimate and guilty sense that someone had been near her. The feeling choked her and made her hurry outside the big tent, free from the smell of food and blankets and gunpowder.
Then she went toward the major’s tent, simply because she knew him better than she knew the rest of the command, and because she wanted to be near someone who was a friend, in this queer time of fear.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Inside the tent, a little fire sprang up. It cast a rosy light through the canvas, and sometimes a vast, wavering, uncertain shadow moved across the side of the tent before Blue Bird. The major’s first words, however, struck her almost blind with terror. She only lived in the sense of hearing, after that. For Marston was saying: “Now, my friends, we’ve come far enough for me to let you understand that this isn’t simply a practice march. The object of it is to wipe out Standing Bull’s Cheyenne camp. There are only sixty braves with him, and. . . .”
“Hold on,” said one of the officers. “They’re peaceful, those Cheyennes.”
“Peaceful?” exclaimed the major. “There’s no such thing as a peaceful Indian! One of my chief jobs,” went on the major, “is to put Rusty Sabin out of the way. Red Hawk, as they call him, will make trouble till he dies. Well, I want him dead before another day ends.”
When she heard this, a small, faint cry came from the throat of Blue Bird. She swayed to her feet, scarcely realizing that she had called out, still half blinded
by what she had been overhearing. And that was why the major found her when, in answer to that sound of woe, he sprang out of the tent. He took her by both arms and thrust her before him into the tent.
“We’ve got a spy with us,” said Marston. “By heaven, she’s a spy . . . and I’ve a mind to treat her as one.”
Captain Dell, lean and hard of face, and with the sparkling eyes of a terrier, turned his shoulder to the scene, perfectly indifferent. But stocky Captain Wilbur’s face wrinkled with pain and disgust.
“It’s she who saved our necks tonight,” he pointed out. “As for the plan you have . . . it’s murder.”
The major glared savagely at Wilbur. “Wilbur,” he said, “it’s beginning to be plain to me that you’re not cut out for Indian fighting.”
“For Indian fighting, I hope,” said Wilbur. “But not for Indian massacres.”
A deep, angry exclamation broke from the major’s throat, but he was never able to finish that remark because Blue Bird, who had been standing limp and weak, as though about to sink to the ground, turned suddenly into a twisting, dodging, darting snake. She jerked her hand from the major’s arm, ducked under Captain Dell’s clutch, and whipped back through the entrance flap. The major, with a warning shout, plunged after her, and was in time to see her slip, a flying shadow, onto the back of his favorite black charger, which was tethered near the tent.
Marston leaped for the head of the horse, but the flash of a knife stopped him. He saw the tie line slashed in two, and then the fierce yell of the Cheyenne girl sent the big horse away at full gallop.
Chivalry was a fault, to the mind of Major Marston. He had no hesitation, therefore, in pulling his revolver and blazing away with the best intent in the world to pick that slender feminine body off the back of the horse. But the rider swerved behind a supply tent, then into brush.
“Catch her! After her!” yelled the major. “Get her alive . . . or get her dead!”
