Читать книгу Thunder Moon Strikes - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 5

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But Mrs. Sutton had heard and seen more than her nerves could stand, and she broke into hysterical weeping at this point. The colonel bade his daughter take her mother from the room. He left Jack with Thunder Moon, and he took Tom Colfax into his private study.

“Tom,” said he, “this is a serious moment.”

“Sir,” said Tom. “I got eyes and ears enough to understand that. But I feel kind of in a dream—after seeing that red devil in your house!”

“But is he red?”

“Is he red?” asked Tom, more bewildered than ever. “Why—well, he’s a half-breed, maybe. He does look a little pale.”

“If you know him, do you know his father?”

“The longest hand you ever seen in a trade. Of course I know Big Hard Face.”

“Big Hard Face?”

“Their way of saying December.”

“Do you know the mother of this boy, then?”

“Her? No, I don’t.”

“Did you ever hear of her?”

“Matter of fact, Big Hard Face don’t live with a squaw.”

“Then how does he come to have a son?”

“The ways of an Indian ain’t our ways with women and children, Colonel Sutton. Maybe he just picked up the boy someplace. Maybe he adopted him.”

The colonel caught his breath.

“That’s all you know?”

“No, it ain’t half. I can tell you about Thunder Moon all day. Why, they’ve had articles about him in the papers! He’s the only Cheyenne that don’t count silly coups and that don’t take scalps, and—”

“What of his honesty?”

“The Suhtai are an honest lot. And Thunder Moon’s word is better than gold.”

“He wouldn’t lie?”

“I don’t say he wouldn’t. But I can tell you how he’s raised hell from Mexico to—”

The colonel raised a rather unsteady hand.

“I think that I’ve heard enough about that already. As a matter of fact, Tom, it begins to appear that this man, this wild Cheyenne, is really the child who was stolen from my house more than twenty years ago.”

Tom Colfax opened his mouth and his eyes.

“Does he say that?” he asked.

“He does!”

“If it’s a lie,” said Tom slowly, “it’s the queerest lie that I ever heard tell of! For what would bring a Suhtai a thousand miles, pretty near, to claim you for a father? Why should he pick you out?”

“You’d believe him? You know Indian nature, Tom.”

“Leastways,” observed Tom dryly, “it wasn’t money that I got out of my stay on the plains.”

“Go with me and let him tell the story simply to us. Do you think that you could spot a lying Indian?”

“I dunno. But I could make a fine try.”

They went back to Thunder Moon, and found him with folded arms standing against the wall just where they had left him, while Jack, a very nervous lad, fidgeted in a chair.

“Thunder Moon,” said the colonel. “I want you to tell us, clearly, just what the old man of the Suhtai told you.”

Thunder Moon answered, “He had no squaw. He had no child. He was no longer a boy. So he went off to do some great thing before he died. He rode a great distance. No great thing came to him to be done. He came to the land of the white men. He rode among their lands. Then he came to a great house, and near the house he saw better horses than he ever had seen before. He saw that the great thing he was led to do was to take some of those horses. So he took the best. And he waited until dark in the woods near the house. There he saw a black woman come out and leave a child under a tree. He thought he would go and take the scalp. The scalp of a white man is good to have.”

“Good heavens!” breathed the colonel.

“But when he went to the child, it held up its hands to him and laughed. His heart became soft. He carried the boy away and raised him in his lodge. That is the story as it was told to me.”

“Colfax,” called the colonel sharply.

“Sir,” said Tom Colfax, “if this here man is lying, I’m a fool that knows nothing!”

The colonel drew a great breath.

“I have gone slowly,” he said to Thunder Moon. “Even now, perhaps, we have no testimony that would stand in a court. But you ride a horse that may well have descended from my stock. You have a distinct resemblance to me. Your skin is white. And you have been raised as an Indian. And, more than that, there is something in my heart that speaks to you, William! Come with me, and we’ll find your mother!”

“It’s settled?” asked Jack, springing up.

“Certainly it’s settled, my boy. Do you object to my decisions?”

“I don’t know,” said Jack Sutton slowly. “It may not be sound reasoning. But—if you’ve made up your mind, that settles everything. William, I’ve held back and made things rather hard for you. Will you shake hands to show that you forgive me?”

Thunder Moon paused, and said in his grave way, “In the lodge of Big Hard Face he was called my father, and White Crow, his aunt, was a mother to me; but I never have had a brother. Our blood is the same. Let our hearts be the same, too!”

And he took the hand of Jack with a strong pressure.

They went up to the room of Mrs. Sutton. The colonel rapped, and the door instantly was thrown open by Ruth.

She shrank at the sight of the tall warrior.

“Ruth, my dear,” said the colonel, “unless God has blinded me terribly, this is no Cheyenne Indian. He is a Sutton, the heir of Sutton Hall, and your own brother!”

“Mother!” cried Ruth. “It’s true! I was right! I was right!”

She took Thunder Moon’s hand.

“Come quickly! I’ve put mother to bed and she mustn’t get up. Come quickly! Oh, father, what a day for us! William, my dear big Indian!”

She drew him, laughing up at him, to the door of a big room. Inside, Thunder Moon saw a large bed, and a small feminine form half rising from it, and the sunlight streaming through the window, glittering on her white hair.

“Do you mean it, Ruth?” And then, seeing Thunder Moon, the mother cried, “My dear boy!” and her arms went out to him.

The colonel would have entered behind his son; but his daughter, with a finer tact, held up her hand and warned him back.

As she closed the door, softly, they heard Mrs. Sutton crying, “My darling! My poor baby!”

Ruth began to laugh, a little wildly.

“Did you hear?” said she. “ ‘Baby’—to that terrible man-slayer!”

Father and daughter went to the window together, their arms around one another, and looking down to the back terrace, behind the house, they saw Jack walking slowly up and down, his hands clasped behind him and his head bowed low.

“Poor Jack!” said the colonel. “He’s taking it very hard, indeed!”

But Ruth said nothing. She merely watched with an anxious eye, and shook her head a little.