Red Fire

by Max Brand

  In his emotion and his pride, he swayed a little from side to side, and his voice reverberated through the lodge like thunder.

  The girl watched, cowering a little. She felt that there was a touch of madness in this frantic warrior.

  “Also,” said the chief, continuing rapidly, “I tell you that Standing Bull has counted many coups. When the coup stick is passed and they ask who has counted twelve coups, the other braves sit silent, until I am called upon. I have taken six scalps. With them I am going to make a rich scalp shirt. Those scalps now are drying and curing in my lodge and they make the heart of Standing Bull great.

  “Now I tell you why I am saying these things. If you stay with White Thunder, soon you will be ashamed. You will wish that you had married even the poorest of the warriors. You will wish that your man was brave and strong in battle. But I, Standing Bull, offer to take you. I will put you on a fine horse. I will carry you away. We will forget White Thunder. I have spoken.”

  VII

  No speech was possible to poor Nancy Brett. If an indignant denial and upbraiding burst almost to her lips, she forced it back.

  This was treason of one man to his friend. But, moreover, it was something else. It was what Standing Bull considered a statement of plain fact. He wanted to spare her a dreadful humiliation and the complete ruin of her life.

  He would leave his place in the nation, and for her sake strive to work out a new destiny in another tribe of the Cheyennes. Leaving his lodge, his horses, his wives, his son and daughters, he would begin a new life.

  She felt the force of all these things. She felt, too, that if he were repulsed he would become an active and open enemy, not only of her but of Paul Torridon. And what an enemy he could be she was well able to guess.

  So, half stunned as all these thoughts swept into her mind, she was unable to speak, but stared first at the chief, and then at the ground.

  He took the burden of an immediate decision from her. He rose and said gently: “Men are like midday, clear, strong, and sudden. Women are like the evening. They are full of a soft half light. Therefore, let my words come slowly home to your mind. Then as time goes on, you will see that they are true. I, Standing Bull, shall wait for you.”

  With this, he wrapped himself in his robe and passed out from the lodge, clothed in his pride, his self-assurance, his vast dignity. She watched him going like the passing of a dreadful storm, with yet a fiercer hurricane blowing up from the horizon’s verge.

  She wanted to talk to Torridon at once and give him warning of what had happened. But there was no one with whom she could talk except Young Willow.

  That bent crone returned to the teepee, carrying wood. When she saw Nancy Brett alone, she cried out in anger, and, casting down her own burden, bade her run to help in carrying in the next load.

  Nancy went willingly enough. Any exertion that would take her mind away from her own dark troubles was welcome to her. The squaw, at the verge of the village, where the brush grew, had cut up a quantity of wood, and she stacked the arms of Nancy with a load under which she barely managed to stagger to the entrance of the lodge. Then she pitched it onto the floor and clung to a side pole, gasping for breath. Young Willow, in spite of her years, threw down a weight twice that which Nancy had been able to manage, and, scarcely breathing hard, turned to the girl with more curiosity than unkindness.

  “They have let you grow up lying in bed,” said Young Willow. She took the arm of the girl in her iron-hard thumb and forefinger.

  “Tush,” said the squaw. “There is nothing here. There is nothing here.” She tossed the arm from her, but then she told Nancy to sit down and rest. On the contrary, the white girl followed her, though Young Willow scolded her all the while they went back to the brush, saying: “What! White Thunder will take your hand and find splinters in it. ‘Who has made this child work?’ he will say, and he will look on me with a terrible brow.”

  It seemed to Nancy an ample opportunity to draw from the squaw confirmation of the viewpoint of the Indians concerning Torridon.

  She said simply: “I don’t think you would be very afraid of White Thunder, no matter what he said.”

  “You think not?” Young Willow asked shortly.

  “Of course not. You are only afraid of men like your chief, High Wolf.”

  “Why only of him?” asked the squaw, more abrupt than ever.

  “He has counted how many coups, and taken how many scalps?” asked Nancy.

  “And should that make us afraid?”

  “Yes. Doesn’t it?”

  “Of course it does. High Wolf is a famous warrior. But he never has pulled the rain down out of the sky.”

  “And White Thunder never has taken a scalp.”

  The squaw stopped and peered beneath furrowed brows at the girl.

  “You are like all the others,” she said. “A woman is never happy until her husband beats her. I never could be sure that High Wolf was a great chief until the day when he threw a knife at me. It missed my eye by the thickness of a hair. After that I knew that I had found a master. I stopped thinking about other men. You are the same way. White Thunder is not great enough for you.”

  It eased the heart of Nancy to hear this talk. Nevertheless, she wanted much more confirmation, and she went on: “White Thunder is very gentle and kind . . . his voice never is harsh . . . of course I love him. But there are other things.”

  “Like crushing the Dakotas? Like making the rain come down when he calls for it? Like using the birds of the sky to carry his messages and be his spies? Is that what you mean? What other men can do those things so well as White Thunder?”

  “He never has taken a scalp,” Nancy repeated, recurring to the words of Standing Bull.

  “Why should he take scalps?” said the old woman fiercely. “Does he need to take scalps? When a chief has killed a buffalo, does he cut off its tail? When a chief has killed a grizzly bear, does he cut off its claws and wear them as ornaments? No, he lets the other men, the younger men, the less famous warriors, cut off the claws. He gives the claws away. That is the way with White Thunder.”

  “He never has joined the scalp dance. He never has joined in the war dance and boasted of what he has done.”

  “The crow can caw and the blackbird can whistle,” said the squaw, “but a great man does not need to talk about himself. No more does White Thunder.”

  “Never once has he counted coup.”

  “Listen to me, while I say the thing that is true,” the other said. “He struck the Dakotas numb. He sent in the young warriors. All the sighting men rushed on the Dakotas, and the Sioux could not strike to defend themselves. With his power, White Thunder could do this. But why should he want to count coups on men who he knew were helpless? That is not his way. He knows that Heammawihio is watching everything that he does. Therefore, he does not dare to cover himself with feathers and scalps, and he does not even carry a coup stick. It is not necessary. His ways are not the ways of the other Cheyennes, and neither is his skin the same color. But you,” she added with heat, “talk like a young fool. You bawl like a buffalo calf whose mother has been killed. There is no sense in what you say. You should sit at home and work very hard and thank Heammawihio for the good husband he has given to you. I, Young Willow, have known many men and seen many young warriors. I have been a wife and still am one. But I never have seen a man so great and also so kind as White Thunder.”

  This speech utterly amazed Nancy. From what she had heard, she rather thought that Young Willow hated the young master for whom she drudged at the bidding of High Wolf. Certainly they constantly were jangling and wrangling, uttering proverbs aimed at one another, to the huge delight of Torridon, and the apparently constant rage of Young Willow.

  But now she saw that the sourness of the old squaw was rather a habit of face than a quality of heart. She smiled to herself, and went on with Young Willow to help carry in the next load of wood.

  As they drew nearer to the brush, they saw some boys
, stripped for running except for the breechclout thong around the hips, getting ready for a race. When they saw the two women, they rushed headlong upon them, yelling.

  “What do they mean?” Young Willow cried, alarmed. “What do they want?”

  She raised a billet of wood above her head and threatened them, shouting: “You little fools! I am the squaw of High Wolf, and this is the squaw of White Thunder with me! White Thunder will wither your flesh and steal your eyesight if you displease him!”

  In spite of these threats, one of the youngsters darted in, took a heavy blow on the shoulder from the cudgel, and caught both Nancy’s hands.

  She was cold with fear; his grip had the power of a young tiger’s jaws.

  He shrilled at her: “You are White Thunder’s woman. Some of his medicine must be about you. Give me some little thing! I never have won a race! I am smaller than the others. Give me some little bit of medicine, and I shall carry it back to you afterward. Give something to me, and I shall win the race. They will be blinded by my dust!”

  He shouted this. Other boys were pressing about her, clamoring likewise, catching at her eagerly. She almost thought that she would be torn to bits.

  At her breast she had a small linen handkerchief. She took it and gave it to the first claimant, the small child who had so desperately wanted help. And off he went, whooping with delight.

  The children lined up at a mark. Their race was around a tree some distance off and back to the mark again.

  “What can that do for him?” said the girl to Young Willow.

  Young Willow laughed. “You will see,” she said. “Everything about White Thunder is full of magic. Speaking Cloud had not killed game for a whole moon. I loaned him White Thunder’s bow. He killed four buffalo in one day.”

  Nancy might have pointed out that this handkerchief was hers and had nothing to do with White Thunder, but she said nothing. So often it was impossible to speak sense to these people.

  In the meantime, the race began. They were off in a whirl, rounded the tree, and came speeding back for the goal.

  “Now look! Now! Do you doubt?” Young Willow asked in exultation.

  Behold, the bearer of the white handkerchief was sweeping up from behind his other and larger companions. A starved-looking, wizened boy was he, half blighted in infancy by some illness. But now he came like the wind.

  The boys in the lead jerked their heads over their shoulders. Their legs seemed to turn to lead. Their mouths opened. They staggered. And the youngster sped past them, half a stride the first to the line.

  “White Thunder! You see what he can do?” cried Young Willow.

  And even Nancy was a little staggered.

  But, for that matter, she had long been convinced that her lover was the greatest of all men.

  VIII

  For twenty-four hours after the crisis was passed with Black Beaver, Torridon remained close to him, teaching the awe-stricken and joyous squaws how to cook broths for the patient and gradually to increase the food as the strength returned to the sick warrior. With care, there no longer was any danger. Black Beaver was an emaciated skeleton of a man, but his eyes were clear, and the joy of restored life burned in it wonderfully bright.

  So Torridon, a tired man, went back to the village. On the way, he encountered a youngster bearing to him in his arms a little puppy, dead and cold. He laid the puppy at the feet of Torridon, made an offering of half a dozen beads from a grimy hand, and then stood expectantly.

  It had even come to that—they looked to Torridon to raise the dead to life again.

  He stared at the poor dead thing with pity and sorrow. “I shall tell you what I can do,” said Torridon. “His spirit has left him and will not come back. But I shall send that spirit into the other world. There it will grow big. When you die in your turn, it will be waiting for you. It will know you and come to your feet.”

  The youngster stared with round eyes of grief, yet he was a little consoled, and particularly when Torridon helped him bury the puppy and said over the grave a few words of gibberish. He went bounding back to the village, and Torridon followed after, a sadder man, indeed.

  He could see that his life among the Cheyennes was drawing toward a crisis. They had demanded of him one impossibility after another. By the grace of a strange fortune he had been able to meet their wishes, but that good fortune could not continue much longer, and with his first important failure, he dreaded the reaction. What would the wild warriors do?

  Full of that thought he came back to the lodge and found Nancy waiting for him with an anxious eye. Young Willow was at work outside, tanning a deerskin, so that Nancy was free to tell him all that had happened.

  He heard the story of Standing Bull and his treacherous proposal with an air of fixed gloom. They sat close together. And Torridon took out the slender, long, double-barreled pistol, and cleaned and loaded it with care, not conscious of what he was doing, though the girl read his mind clearly.

  What could she say to him, however? What resource was left to them?

  The suggestion that came was out of another mind.

  Rushing Wind came that evening and took Torridon apart from the lodge. They were beyond the camp before he would speak. Then he declared all that Roger Lincoln had planned and announced that he was willing to do his share. Torridon, hearing, was half doubtful of the faith of the warrior. But like a desperate man he was of a mind to clutch at straws.

  They made their plans with care. Every day, Torridon and Nancy were to make a habit of riding out from the camp with their guard around them rather late in the afternoon. Because, as Rushing Wind pointed out, in case of an actual attempt at escape succeeding, the closer the fugitives were to the night, the better for them.

  The greatest difficulty, beyond that of breaking away from the guards in the first place, would be in finding a proper mount for Nancy. The best they could do was to hope that the finest animal in Torridon’s herd would be swift enough for the work. This was a pinto, a strong little fellow, rather short of leg, but celebrated for iron endurance.

  Through all this talk, Rushing Wind spoke nervously, uncertainly, as a man who is not at all sure that he is following the course of duty. However, as they turned back toward the camp he finally declared with some emotion: “I have given my word in exchange for my life. And the life of my father has been given to me, also. May I become a coward in battle, White Thunder, and a scorn and a shame to my people, if I do not work for you in all this as if my soul were in your hands.”

  With that avowal, Torridon had to rest content, though he was well aware of the shifting mind of an Indian, and the changes that a single day might produce in Rushing Wind and in his resolve.

  They had no sooner got back to the camp than two eager messengers pounced on Torridon and dragged him off on an errand of the greatest haste.

  They carried him to the lodge of Singing Arrow, an old and important member of the tribe. He had passed the flower of his prime as an active fighter, but he was still of great value and much respected in the council. When Torridon entered, he found Singing Arrow sitting, cross-legged, at the side of a young and pretty girl who he had recently taken as a wife. On the other side of the lodge lay a Negro with a close-cropped, woolly head.

  And at a single glance he could tell that the Negro and the girl were suffering from one ailment. Their faces were puffed. Their eyes were distended. Their breath was an alarming rattle in their throats.

  The story was quickly told. The evening before, Torridon knew that a Negro, apparently a runaway slave, had come to the camp riding a horse that staggered with exhaustion. The Negro himself appeared weak with the long journey from the settlements. And Singing Arrow, out of the largeness of his heart, had taken him into his teepee. Apparently the poor black man was suffering from some highly infectious disease, and it was making terrible progress with the young squaw.

  Torridon examined them in wonder. He never had seen such sickness before. The limbs seemed to be shrunken. T
he bodies and the faces were swollen. On the right arm of the Negro, high up on the inside, there was a hard swelling beneath the skin. On the left arm of the girl there was a similar swelling. They had high fevers. Their eyes were bloodshot and rolled in delirium. Never before had Torridon seen such a thing.

  He gave strong advice at once—that the Negro and the squaw be moved to the edge of the camp, away from all the other lodges. That no one from this teepee should so much as speak to other members of the tribe. That the patients should be watched day and night and given only that light broth that was Torridon’s staple diet for all the sick of the Cheyennes.

  “The evil spirit in the body of the Negro,” he explained gravely, “has called on its fellows. They have passed into the body of the squaw. From her, in turn, they may pass into others.”

  After that he went back to his own lodge, took off the clothes he was wearing, and had Young Willow hang them outside the lodge, with orders that they should not be touched again until a fortnight of wind and sun had passed over them. Then he went to sleep, very troubled. It seemed as though the great disaster that he had been fearing was already upon the Cheyennes.

  In the morning, he learned that the Negro and the squaw were in the same condition. The lodge had been moved, obediently, to the verge of the camp, but in doing so neighbors had given help. Torridon shuddered when he learned this story.

  However, there was another thing to occupy both Torridon and Nancy. He told her the plan that morning, and, in the late afternoon, they went out together, with Ashur and the pinto. The great chief, Rising Hawk, was in person at the head of their escort on this day. With him were two young braves, scarcely past boyhood, but for that reason all the lighter, on horseback, all the wilder and swifter as riders.

  They passed far down the bank of the river, turned, and rode in a broad circle back toward the village.

  As they came nearer, a frantic horseman approached them. His news he shouted from a distance, and again in stammering haste as he came closer. Every person in the lodge of Singing Arrow was prostrate and helpless with the illness. The Negro who brought the pestilence into the village was dead. And half a dozen of those who had helped in the removal of the lodge that day were already ill.