Читать книгу Thunder Moon Strikes - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 8

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A moment later Standing Antelope, who was following his leader through these mazes, spoke abruptly to his companion, and Thunder Moon translated to his father, “What is wrong with the legs of Standing Antelope? Why do the braves and the squaws stare at them?”

There was a stifled burst of laughter and Thunder Moon turned a dangerous eye to locate the noise. The laughter ceased.

“There is nothing wrong,” declared the colonel in much haste. “All is well, my son.”

And he carried Thunder Moon farther into the crowd. Faces began to blur in the eyes of Thunder Moon. He was a stranger in a strange land, and yet all these people spoke to him with the utmost cordiality. Sometimes, at his replies, there were little compressions of the lips, and sometimes there were slight changes of color, but on the whole he noticed nothing very wrong.

It did not occur to Thunder Moon as strange that the party began to break up suddenly and that people began to hurry away. So Indians came and went at a feast.

There was only one ominous form to him. And that was his brother, Jack, who was always somewhere in the background, with a white face that wore a continual faint sneer, or a smile that was like a sneer.

Then there was his sister, Ruth, who seemed half amused and half pained. It was easy for him to speak to her. And as the last of the guests moved away, he crooked his finger.

Obediently, she came to him.

“Are the strangers all gone?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He sat down cross-legged on the edge of the carpet. He produced his pipe and filled it.

“Bring me a coal,” he commanded.

Readily, she brought what he wanted. He blew a puff of smoke toward the floor, and another toward the ceiling.

“Peace to this lodge,” said Thunder Moon, “and peace to all the people in it! May their robes never rot with mold and may the buffalo never fail them in hunting season! Now, sister, tell me what came of the woman with the flower-face.”

“Of Charlotte Keene?”

“You called her that. The name is hard to say.”

“She was here with the others. Didn’t you meet her?”

“Sometimes many clouds hide the mountains,” observed Thunder Moon gloomily. “Where is the colonel chief?”

“Do you mean—our father?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll call him for you.”

Thunder Moon leaped to his feet and touched her shoulder with his iron hand.

“Girl,” said he, “is it proper for a great chief to be called to his son; or for a mother to be called to her daughter? Go, and I follow you!”

So Ruth led the way, and did not smile; and soft-footed Standing Antelope followed to where the colonel and his wife sat in the library, in close and anxious consultation.

Thunder Moon, in the doorway, paused.

“Oh, my father, is this tepee filled or is it free for me to come in to you?”

“Come in, William. Come in!”

Thunder Moon strode in.

“Send away the women!” said he.

“You had better go for a moment,” said the colonel. “And you, Ruth. These ways will have to be endured for a time. Then we’ll begin to make a few alterations!”

Mrs. Sutton and her daughter left; but Thunder Moon, turning a little, followed the form of his mother with a smile. And she, looking back at the doorway, saw the smile.

All was well between them!

The door closed. Thunder Moon had sent Standing Antelope away; he was alone with his father.

“Shall we smoke together?” asked Thunder Moon.

“Yes, if you will. Sit on this chair, my boy, not on the floor!”

“I am not an old man,” said Thunder Moon, “and my legs are still strong enough to support me. However,” he added with instant and instinctive courtesy, “do sit on the chair, my father. You have fought in many battles. How many coups the colonel chief has counted and how many scalps he has taken! But he has been wounded, and he has had the spearhead of the enemy in his flesh. Therefore, sit on the chair, my father. It will be easier for you.”

“Have I been wounded? Who has told you that?” asked the colonel, turning curious.

“My eye is not the eye of Standing Antelope,” said Thunder Moon, “and it is true that the Suhtai have called me a blind man. Yet I can see what is put in my hand—or a cloud in the sky—or the rising sun. And, therefore, my father, I could see that your left leg was more tired than the right.”

The colonel started. Many and many a year ago a bullet had torn through that unlucky left leg, but he had thought that all traces of a limp had disappeared from his gait long since.

“And when the knife,” went on Thunder Moon, “cut in the soft flesh of the throat it is a danger.”

“Could you see that scar? My boy, you’re a hawk!”

“And the right side of my father is weak. Perhaps he was struck there, also?”

“By heavens,” said the colonel, “your mother has been telling you about these things!”

“My mother?” said Thunder Moon, surprised. “We did not talk.”

“No?”

“Except with our eyes and with our hearts,” said Thunder Moon gently. “What are words? They cannot speak of love!”

The colonel looked intently at his older son. In another this would be a speech something more than flowery, but the grave honesty of Thunder Moon could not be doubted. He simply was translating as well as he knew how from his old dialect into his new one.

“She did not tell you that I was wounded in the right side? How do you guess it then? Do you look through cloth, my boy?”

“The old pine is still strong,” said Thunder Moon. “It will not fall during the lifetime of a man. And yet it has begun to lean. It is not standing on a mountainside, and yet it is leaning to the right. Why does it lean, my father?”

“You mean that I incline a little to the right?” said the colonel, straightening his shoulders. “I don’t think so, William.”

“When you stand,” said Thunder Moon, smiling.

“You are a mind reader!” said the colonel. “Well, sit on the floor if you insist. Will you have some of this tobacco?”

“No, father, but shall we smoke your pipe or mine? This tobacco of mine is a good medicine. It is a dream tobacco. Old Flying Crow had a dream, and the head of a buffalo rose above water and told him where to get the bark to mix with this tobacco. He gave me some, because I had helped his son in a battle.”

“Let us smoke your tobacco then,” said the colonel, interested. “But why should we have only one pipe, my lad? I’m fond of this old black pipe of mine!”

“How does wisdom come except with time?” asked Thunder Moon. “Lo, I am young! The years have not carried me very far down the stream, and it may be that your pipe is better. But a long stem makes a cool smoke,” he went on, fitting the stem into the pipe bowl. “Also, this is a gift of the Sky People. Low Cloud made this pipe in the old days. The Crows took it from him when they killed and scalped him. Then Sleeping Wolf, the Pawnee, got the pipe and took the scalp of the Crow who had it, and with that scalp he took the pipe of Low Cloud. And then the Sky People gave Sleeping Wolf into my hands. As he died, he told me the story of the scalps and the pipe. I found the body of Low Cloud, two days dead. I fitted the scalp back on his head. I raised him on a platform. I put weapons beside him and killed a horse beneath him. So his spirit rode off to hunt the buffalo over the blue fields of the sky. And his pipe has been good medicine to me ever since.”

The colonel was silent for a moment. He had loved war and battle all his days, and yet this calm reference to a triple killing as a mere part of a story about a pipe made his blood run cold.

“All this is well,” said he, “so we’ll smoke your pipe, my boy. This old one of mine? Why, I’ve never done a thing for it except to cut out the cake once in a while, and polish it up a bit. And it hasn’t a bit of meaning except that I’ve smoked it these many years!”

“It is not really medicine, then?” asked Thunder Moon, opening his eyes.

“Not a whit!”

Thunder Moon blushed for his father, and he said hastily, “However, many a strong and rich man will use a cheap thing. But let us smoke this pipe of mine!”

He lighted it with a flint and steel, showering sparks on a bit of dry tinder. Then he blew the customary puffs to the earth spirits and the Sky People, and passed the pipe reverently to his father.

“Now I shall tell you why I have come to speak to you this morning. Are you ready to hear me?”

“Yes.”

“In your keeping there are many horses, my father. You have harried your enemies and wisely stolen their horses. Many a brave walks to the hunt because the colonel chief has stolen his horses and his mules. I have seen them on your lands!”

“Bought and raised,” broke in the colonel, growing a little hot of face. “I hope that not one of them has been stolen.”

At this Thunder Moon opened his eyes a little. Again he blushed for his father and said hastily, “Well, let it be so. I have heard before of men who love a bought horse as well as one that is nobly stolen from an enemy!”

“Nobly stolen?” gasped the colonel.

“What is nobler?” asked Thunder Moon. “What is better than to ride, and make an enemy walk? Well, but the truth is that you have many horses and many mules?”

“That is very true. I am mighty glad to say that I have many of them.”

“In my own land and among my own people,” said Thunder Moon, “I, also, have many ponies. They are of the best Comanche breed, small and strong and tireless. Now give me ten of your horses, and I shall give you in return as many of my ponies as you wish to have in payment when I can send for them.”

“You want ten horses?” asked the colonel. “You shall have as big a riding string as you want, dear lad, as a matter of course. But I’m curious. Why do you want ten horses?”

Thunder Moon stirred a little, and impassive as he kept his face, he could not prevent a slight shadow from crossing it.

“I understand,” said he. “My father is about to ride on the warpath. He has need of all of his horses to mount his young men when he goes to take scalps. I am sorry that I asked. Forget that I have begged ten horses from you!”

“Good God!” exclaimed the colonel. “Am I refusing you the first request you’ve ever made to me? No, no, William! A hundred horses, if you want them! Take a hundred! I only asked—why, lad, there’s no harm in a question, is there?”

“A hundred,” said Thunder Moon, smiling. “This is very well. I do not think that I shall need so many. But you are kind. Only tell me where I can find the lodge of the chief who is the father of the young girl, Charlotte Keene.”

The colonel glanced sharply at his son, and then he smiled a little.

“I think that you’ll want to call there before long,” said he. “Well, when the time comes, we’ll take you over, or have the Keenes in for dinner. They live five miles down the road. It’s the white house with the long front and the columns in front—very like mine. You couldn’t miss it.”

The colonel went back into the house and Thunder Moon said to Standing Antelope, “Go with me, Standing Antelope, and show me if you have forgotten how to catch a horse.”

“My feet still carry me,” and the youngster smiled, “and I am not blind. Let us go, Thunder Moon.”

At the fence of the broad pastures, they looked over the horse herd, and Thunder Moon, sitting on the topmost rail, checked over the ones he wished to select.

“There is no reason,” said he, “why a man should spend the finest horses in a herd to make a purchase. A horse is a horse. Take the young mare, yonder, to begin with. Ah, Standing Antelope, what horses these are! No wonder that the heart of Big Hard Face swelled in his breast when he looked on these chestnuts! And how many dozens of generations have men lived and worked to breed such animals?”

“They are the gift of Tarawa,” said Standing Antelope, coming back and leading the mare that had been selected first. “They are the gift of the Sky People, because it is plain that no men could breed such horses as these. The great chief, your father, must have very strong medicine!”

“He has,” said Thunder Moon, proud of his family for almost the first time since his return to the home of his race. “It is not hard to catch these ponies, Standing Antelope.”

“Look!” said the boy. “They come to the hands like dogs. They have fine eyes. And see how the muscles work in their shoulders! Ha-Hai, Thunder Moon, if they did not belong to the father of a friend of mine, I should slip down to this field some black night and in the morning—well, they would be eating grass in another place!”

Thunder Moon smiled in broadest sympathy.

“Young wolf,” said he, “follow another herd. This is not the place to fatten your hollow ribs! Now get that tall gelding that looks a little weak in the flanks, and the colt that is low in the croup, also....”

So the ten were selected and gathered in a group, and Thunder Moon mounted his war horse, the great Sailing Hawk, and rode off, with Standing Antelope on his own pony.

They went straight down the highway until they came before the long, low façade of the Keene mansion.

They turned into the driveway, and Thunder Moon tethered the horses to the hitching rack that stood at one side. That done, he and Standing Antelope swung into the saddle and galloped back—not directly back to Sutton House, but through the country by a winding way that carried them carelessly and freely here and there. For they needed to talk to one another. They had not been long in the house of the white man, but already they were feeling the galling bondage of civilization.