Читать книгу Brother of the Cheyennes - Max Brand - Страница 5

CHAPTER II

THERE was a snag in the swiftest part of the current. It was just large enough to reach the surface of the stream, and its presence was made known by the water that sprang into the air from the face of it, as though from the prow of a boat. The pilot of the Minnie P. Larsen, therefore, swung the head of the steamboat away from this danger. All should have gone well, except that the head of the boat was pushed over a little too far, and instantly the force of the current did the rest. It caught hold of the nose of the Minnie P. Larsen and swung it with a sudden thrust. The ship trembled, heeled enough to bring a yell from the crowd on deck, and then came broadside on against a hidden sand bar.

Bill Tenney could hear the groaning of the timbers. He saw the river boat heel far over, until almost the entire width of the deck was visible. The top layers of a big pile of cases spilled over the rail into the waters. People fell and skidded, yelling. But Bill Tenney’s eyes were for the White Horse alone. He saw the stallion flung staggering, regain its footing with catlike speed; and to avoid crashing headlong into the railing, the horse leaped right over the side of the boat and into the boil and sweep of the swiftest current.

Then, out of the wild outcry on the ship, Tenney heard one mastering voice of agony. He saw Rusty Sabin dive over the side after his horse. They were lost, horse and man, and Tenney knew it.

The people on the Minnie P. Larsen knew the same thing, and acted on it; for when Rusty’s father tried to lunge after his son, Tenney saw several men fling themselves on the giant and hold him back. He was lost under a twisting heap of humanity, still struggling.

What about those expert canoemen along the shore? What would they do? Well, they knew too perfectly the force of that current and the numbers of sharp-toothed snags that would shear like knives through the paper-thin birch bark. They kept to the edge of the slack, shouting to one another, paddling hard to see the disaster, but not to intervene in it.

Then, Tenney saw the head of the White Horse break above the surface of the churning water, far down the stream. It was as bright as a piece of wet satin. He saw the red flare of the nostrils; and with bewilderment, with a mighty leaping of his heart, he noted that the ears were pricked forward!

No fear was in the great horse. Heading upstream, fighting with all his might, he was striving valiantly to work to the edge of the current and gain the slack. Perhaps courage came to him from the sight of his master, who appeared for a moment above the surface near by. But the swift, rolling water would soon have them both under. They were gone, all at once, and the White Horse, the animal that might have given wings to Tenney’s savage ambitions, would surely be battered–stifled–drowned.

There was as much evil in Tenney, already born or darkly breeding, as one could expect to find in a man; but there was a strain of courage in him, also, like the flash of steel in thick night. He drew in his breath with a groan, flashed the blade of his paddle, and shot his canoe right out into the tumult of the stream.

What did he think to do, that thief in fact; that murderer in the making? Well, there was no room in him for thought, but only for emotion. By that paddle-stroke he had thrust himself out of the audience and onto the stage of a tragedy, and a certain greatness of heart in him matched the danger of the moment and its bigness. The river had three lives in its grasp, and he alone could save himself and the others by skill and strength and lucky chance.

Certainly in Tenney’s mind there was little heed for the man; it was for the White Horse that he drove the canoe, kneeling in the bottom, amidships, while the little craft staggered and pitched. He steadied it with speed, as he put his might into the long handle of the paddle.

He gained rapidly, of course. Man and horse were blotted out before him, then they appeared again. The horse was not far away. The man was a little closer. And then Tenney saw, out of the blindness of desire that filled him, that he had no means of effecting a rescue. He had flung himself madly into the conflict, like a man who is incapable of swimming but who goes to the rescue of a drowning soul. For how could he reach a hand to the horse and still manage the canoe?

A snag, like the pointed nose of a shark, lifted out of the water just before him. He veered past that point, which would have spitted his canoe like a spear. And now, he saw that Rusty Sabin, his hair floating dark red on the water, had reached the stallion and was holding to it by the mane. The only effect was to cause the pair to whirl slowly and to shift farther out toward the center of the river.

There are things to be dreaded more than death. The loss of that which is dear to us is far more terrible. Vaguely, Bill Tenney realized this as he shot the canoe onward, still making his endeavor after he had lost the hope of making the rescue. But if he were to die, it was somehow better to die there near the man and the horse. Men talk of hell for the wicked; but the White Horse and Rusty Sabin, brave, gentle, merciful–might they not draw after them one companion into a brighter afterlife of hope?

That, too, was in Tenney’s brain; but more than all else, the blind persistence of his first impulse–to do something, somehow.

He was coming down too fast. In another instant he would be beside them. So he backed water strongly, and the riffle that followed threw a heavy wave into the boat.

The desperately set face of Rusty Sabin showed above the water. As the canoe swirled in the stream, Sabin’s hand gripped its rear; his other hand gripped the mane of the stallion. And suddenly Bill Tenney found that he was indeed linked to the pair. An indivisible trio, they would now live or die together.

All that can be said is that he was not afraid. As he felt the pull of the weight behind him, he could understand that behind the gentle, dreaming look of the fellow he had marked on the deck of the ship there was that mysterious power which had enabled him to become great in the eyes of both red men and white. He was a white Indian, into which the strength of the two races had been breathed.

Big Bill Tenney felt this, and then all thought, all feeling went out of him as he bent his efforts toward pointing the nose of the canoe up the stream. Body, brain and spirit, he turned himself into a machine of vast labor.

In the might of his grasp, the strong ash paddle became a supple thing. He wanted an oar of iron for such work as this. The pull of every stroke sent a numb tingling up shoulder and neck and into the base of his brain. The shore grew hazy; the other canoes that were racing down through the slack water were blurred before his eyes.

They were shooting blindly down the stream. The first snag that lay in their path would be the end of them. He kept uttering one word, as the breath gushed from his body: “God–God–God–God!”

Over and over, not knowing what he was saying.

He forgot what was behind him. He forgot the purpose for which he was striving, except that he had to edge the bobbing, swaying, ducking point of his canoe farther and farther toward the edge of the sweeping current, and closer to the slack. There is a divinity of labor; a blind god. For his worship men need use only the power of the body. And in that black ecstasy Bill Tenney fought on.

They reached the bend. The water foamed and shouted more heavily than before; its rushing noises seemed to be streaming through Bill Tenney’s soul. The spray whipped his hot face. His shirt at the armpits and down the breast had split open from the force of his mighty effort.

He could hear voices, thin as the rays of starlight, but they gave him no hope. The shore was blotted out from him. A force pushed behind his eyes, making them bulge out, and a constant strain drew back the corners of his mouth and made his face hideous.

Then a thin arm grasped his shoulders and froze his arms to his sides. The force of that grasp bit into his hard muscles. He was drawn suddenly forward in the canoe, before he realized that a line had been flung over him.

He gripped the sides of the canoe. Before him, he saw the length of the braided rawhide, trembling and swaying. Little by little, his eyes cleared. He was aware that he had so far succeeded in his efforts as to bring the canoe close to the verge of the strong current; and now, where the current narrowly rounded the bend, the men on shore had managed to wade far into the slack water and make a successful cast with the lariat.

After that, his brain cleared rapidly. He saw the crowd on the shore gathering to a greater size. He heard their cheering. Men were galloping their horses down from Fort Marston.

“Hell!” said Bill Tenney to himself. “Looks like I been a damn hero or something!”

He wanted to laugh in derision.

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