Читать книгу The White Cheyenne (Max Brand) (Literary Thoughts Edition) - Макс Брэнд - Страница 9

My personal grudge and rage against the big Doctor was gone, by this time. Not that I had any reason, of course, for hating him the less, but because I had come on the trail of something much larger than he or I. I had before me the graceful figure of Running Deer, whom sixty frontiersmen could rejoice in capturing because he was the friend of Lost Wolf—who was neither chief nor even redskin!

I could learn what had happened this day concerning Running Deer, at the least.

Rene Laforce, that brutal and famous scout from Canada had been in Zander City the day before, when news was brought in that a party of Cheyennes had swooped down on the pasture lands near the town where a large number of horses were grazed, carrying off seven or eight score of them.

Laforce had reputation enough to be given command of the party of riders which started in hot pursuit. They rode fast enough to come up to the heels of the Indians. There were only some dozen or fifteen of these, but, like true Cheyennes under a dauntless leader, they had turned back and started to put up a running fight to keep off the whites, while two or three of the Indians kept the stolen horseflesh on the move.

The leader of this rear-guard action, which cost the men from Zander City three or four casualties, was the brilliant figure of Running Deer. Hard luck followed him at the last, however, and it was chance rather than the skill of the whites that brought him down. The pony he was riding stumbled, catching its foot in a hole in the ground, throwing the young chief so heavily that he was stunned. The Cheyennes turned back to fight for him, but they had no chance. A wave of a score of triumphant men whirled around Running Deer. With this living prize the party turned and started back toward Zander City.

Here was Running Deer among us, and yonder on the prairies was his friend, Lost Wolf.

“But,” said I, “I don’t see why Lost Wolf is so much to be feared, if he allows his friend to be carried off like that.”

I was told that Lost Wolf was not there; that he could not have been there, for had he been present the men of Zander City would have had to pay dearly for their captive.

Here I was met by a current of rumor which I myself had lucklessly started—that Lost Wolf had been made a chief among the Cheyennes!

Too much filled with shame to remain to hear any more after this, I simply hurried along to get as near as I could to the place of activity, which was near Running Deer, of course.

He had been put inside the store of one of the biggest traders in the town. The walls of that building were composed of heavy logs. As it was in a central location, it was felt that a sufficient guard against Lost Wolf would be erected in this manner.

I stepped in and visited an offhand street council on the way, where the matter was seriously debated back and forth. The leading orator of that group maintained that the only politic thing to be done was to turn Running Deer loose as soon as he had procured the restitution of the horses which he had stolen. Because, this town politician of the frontier maintained, Lost Wolf, who up to this time had never taken arms against the whites, would now certainly go on the warpath to avenge the death of his friend. And bitter would be the visitation of his vengeance upon Zander City and all the men thereof! Nothing less than the immediate wiping out of the town was prophesied!

From that place, I went on to the store where the chief was kept. I had no sooner presented myself at the door than I was not only admitted where the rest were kept back, but I was presently offered a position of trust. They wished me to become a member of the group which was guarding the distinguished prisoner.

No young man can refuse anything that smacks of distinction. When you are past thirty the edge of the appetite for fame is a little more slack, whether it has been gratified or not. Up to that age there is nothing like a pat on the shoulder from the right hand. So it was with me, and presently I found myself one of half a dozen men who lounged in the store.

They were experienced men of the frontier. I could see that at a glance. There was responsibility in their faces and pride in their manner, so that I was very glad to be counted one of them. At least, my foolishness of that day, including my trouncing at the hands of The Doctor, had brought me this much reward. Zander City was willing to recognize me as a man of might!

I had only a moment for the faces of the other guards, however. They had accepted their task philosophically, and, like men who know how work should be done, three of them were lying down and resting, though not one was asleep. Of the other three, two sat on opposite sides of the spot where the prisoner was tied securely to one of the heavy upright posts that supported the roof of the store. These two, it might be taken for granted, would spot any approaching danger. The third member of the watch faced the prisoner himself, keeping a watchful regard upon the young chief.

A very neat arrangement, if you think it over for a moment. I would not have given a damaged nickel for the chances of Running Deer to escape.

He was the fellow that I wanted to see at close hand, however. My first glance had given me a flashing and a brilliant picture of that captive. Now that I could examine him at my leisure, I saw that I had underestimated him rather than put him above the facts.

He was lean from the labors of a long trail. You could have counted his ribs with the greatest ease. That leanness, like the thin sides of a wolf, rather seemed to make him more formidable. Since all superfluous fat was gone, I could follow the outline of every muscle. He was robed in active strength. Ten thousand whipcords seemed stretching and stirring under his skin whenever he moved.

Yes, he looked the part of a man who would be all teeth, if he were cornered. I remembered at that moment stories which I had heard from men who declared that one white man was enough for any half dozen Indians. I could recall that they had said these things in the quiet warmth of their hearth, long after they had left the ardors of the frontier behind them.

Two men like Running Deer would have coped with any pair of whites that I had ever known!

I could see a broad bruised place on his temple, as large as the heel of my palm. It was greatly swollen. From the skin, which was perfectly black, a number of bristling bits of grass projected. Grass, bits of gravel, and all had lodged in his flesh in his fall, and no one had thought of cleansing the wound.

I stepped closer to him and laid my hand against his forehead. It was what I expected—burning hot! What with exhaustion and the mental strain of his captivity and his hurt, he was in a high fever.

Well, I was as calloused a youth as you could find in a long hunt, but I could not help a feeling of compassion for the Cheyenne in his misery. What touched me most was that an accident had felled him. I knew that the best horse in the world may go down, and the best rider in the world may be thrown.

I remembered, too, having been lost in the country and going without water for twelve hours of a hot summer day. One glimpse of the dried, cracking lips of the Cheyenne told me what he was suffering.

Getting him a quart tin of water, I held it at his lips. He made no move to accept it. I thought I understood him. Perhaps he suspected that the white men would make short work of their problem by poisoning their prisoner. So I tasted the water myself and then offered it to him again.

I shall never forget how his dark eyes flashed suddenly up to me while the dark copper of his skin turned red. He drank, paused with heaving sides, and drank again. He emptied the measure of water and leaned back against the post with his eyes closed—almost overcome with the relief which that draft had given him.

“Why,” said one of the guards, “it looks like the Deer is pretty dry. I never thought of that!”

“Let him dry up,” said another. “He has given some of our boys worse than that!”

I looked over at the speaker and he looked straight back at me in a very ugly fashion. He was a true-blue Indian hater. You could tell that at a glance. In that day, you were apt to run across one of these fellows in any part of the country, men who had had nothing to do with Indians except when the latter were in their most devilish moods. They could keep your hair bristling all night with tales about atrocities which had been committed by the tribes. A lot of them were true, but nearly all a bit exaggerated.

Very frequently the cause of trouble between the races came from the white man first. Of course, his rascality usually took the form of some merely civil crime—such as giving the redskin light weight and short measures in his trading, or, again, by breaking a little promise. What Indian would think of a lawsuit? He despised methods of talk. He knew nothing but the warpath and the scalping knife to make wrong right.

Not that I am apologizing for the Indians. I don’t pretend to know everything about them. Even at the last I was never able to speak any Indian tongue with a real fluency. And who can know any people, really, unless he has mastered their speech thoroughly? I am only frankly setting forth the Indians whom I happened to meet, and what they were at the time I met them, some bad and some good. I have an idea that if one were able to draw a middle line between the two extremes one would find that the Indian’s character was just about like the character of a child—a child with the power of a man in his hands!

When I listened to the last speaker and looked across the room to him, into the rage and the scorn that was in his eyes simply because I was daring to extend a little charity to that poor devil of a prisoner, I can assure you that all the doubts I had myself about Indians were banished for the moment under the determination to give still further offense to that Indian hater.

I cast about for a means of giving that offense. That was my motive rather than any Christian charity for the sufferer, I have to admit.

First, I cleaned out that wound of the straws and the bits of gravel. It was horribly inflamed from this dirt and from the long ride in the heat of the sun. On the whole, it was simply remarkable that that man was not raging in a delirium, such was the condition of that wound.

The relief was so great, as I reduced the swelling, that the poor devil broke into a perspiration. I gave him a mere taste of brandy to brace him up a bit. That brought another snarl from the guard, but he had heard enough about me to keep from accusing me to my face. He merely contented himself with muttering and glowering at me.

When this work was ended, I cast about me for some other means of angering my friend, the Indian hater. The sight of a pile of jerky in a corner of the store exactly fitted in with my wishes. I picked up a couple of big strips of that meat, and since the Cheyenne’s hands were both tied behind him, I fed him that meat, mouthful by mouthful. He ate like a savage wolf at the edge of death from starvation.

All this time he had said not a word. Except for that first upward flash of his eyes, I could not tell whether he were moved or not by my kindness to him. As a matter of fact, as I have already said, I did not care. I was aiming at provoking that other frontiersman, and, indeed, he was raging with anger before I had ended.

Just then, big Laforce came into the store. The aggrieved Indian hater registered a murmured complaint against me, and Laforce instantly granted the complaint.

Perhaps you have heard of Laforce. He was one of the biggest and ugliest men that ever lived. His face was perfectly normal except for one feature. That was an extraordinary growth of flesh about the chin which made him simply horrible to behold.

This Laforce told me, politely enough, that now that he had returned they could dispense with my services, for which he thanked me. Since there was nothing to be done unless, like a fool, I began by questioning his authority, I simply walked out of the store, rather well pleased with myself. Because I was such a fool in those days that next to making a friend I was gladdest of making an enemy, and I succeeded much better in the second line than in the first.

The instant I was out of the store, I was glad that I was in the open, for word came that a message had reached Zander City from Lost Wolf himself!