Sun and Sand Read online

  Duncan stared at his companion, and Meany looked back at Duncan in disgust.

  “And what do you mean by hanging back like that?” roared Duncan. “What do you . . .?” Rage choked him. His stern face turned crimson and purple and became swollen with fury.

  Young Tarlton saluted adroitly. “Sire,” he said, “I am the rear guard of the grand army.”

  “You!” shouted Duncan. “You’re the rear jackass of the entire world! Get out of my sight!”

  “Men, retire by platoons,” said Tarlton. He kept his hand at a long salute, and, still perched sidewise on the saddle, he forced the fine animal he was riding to traverse, and so gradually approached the staggering wagon ahead.

  “He can ride,” Duncan admitted as the strange outfit and its owner went reeling up the slight slope toward the fort, where the rest of the caravan was pooling before the entrance to the place. “He can ride well enough to shine in a park. But an Indian would send ten arrows through that fool and make him look like a porcupine, while he was showing off the paces of his horse.”

  “Did he bring that horse all the way up the river?”

  “By Jiminy,” said Duncan, “he did exactly that. And not only all the way up the river, but all the way from Virginia, also. Man, think of that horse when the first cold weather blows up. Think of that skin like silk, when even the Indian ponies that look more like bears than horses are shuddering and shaking and drawing up their bellies with the cold.”

  “He ain’t the first bit of an old family that has been turned into buzzard food,” said Meany. “And the way I figger it, Duncan, out in this part of the world, them of us that get on have got to climb a ladder of bones. He’s another rung or two, and that’s all. But I’ve never seen a better horse. I’ve never seen a slicker mover than that.”

  “If he ain’t grained once a day,” said Duncan bitterly, “he’s dropping his head and losing his heart. I’d rather have a cat to ride than a silken, worthless fool like that horse. We’ll go on toward the fort. I’ve got a jug in my wagon, and it’s not filled with trade whiskey. It’s got bourbon in it that will wash the dust out of your throat and out of your brain at the same time.”

  They rode on, side-by-side, until they came to the last hill before the fort, with young Charlie Meany and Duncan’s escort reining well to the rear. Here Meany halted for a moment and pointed to the Indian encampment. In three broad sections, they surrounded the fort with the whiteness of their teepees. On the river edge, parties of boys were playing, women were carrying up water to the lodges, and young men raced their ponies over the plains.

  Duncan viewed this approvingly. “What have you got here?” he asked. “That’s Piegan, I’d say.”

  “That’s Piegan,” agreed Meany.

  “Beaver?”

  “They’ve come down with the best of the Blackfoot country in their packs. They’ve got everything in the shape of a plew from the mountains to Fort Union, and from Belly River to the Yellowstone. They’ve brought them down here, and they’re reaching for trade. Their axes are wore out or lost. Their knives have been sharpened away till they’d bend in a thick wind. Their beads are broken or lost or used up. Their blankets are rags, and they’ve got a hunger for tea and coffee and sugar in the bottom of their bellies. Man, man, there’s the making of ten fortunes in that outfit of Piegans. I tell you, there’s riches untold in the packs of those Blackfeet.”

  Duncan regarded the teepees with a broad, mirthless grin, and his thin nostrils quivered and expanded.

  “Cheyennes?” he said, waving to the right-hand side of the river at the smallest encampment.

  “Loaded to back-breaking with pemmican and robes. No better robes than the Cheyenne squaws cure. They’ve brought in painted ones by the score . . . and deerskin suits covered with quill work and beadwork. And they’re as hungry for trade as the Piegans, pretty nigh.”

  “And what are those?”

  “Horse-stealing Crows. With plenty of pelts. And ready to trade, too.”

  “Aye,” said Duncan, “there’s a fortune in those teepees, yonder, but, by my way of thinking, you’ve got three tribes of the hardest-fighting Indians in the world stacked around your little fort, Meany.”

  III

  All remarks that Duncan had to make were listened to with the greatest attention, and Meany hastened to take the great partisan into the fort and point out his preparations for defense. Looking east and looking west upon the walls of the fort, there were little brass howitzers, and from a barrel, Meany picked up a handful of small slugs to show with what the cannons were loaded. The flash and the boom of them could be depended upon to turn any Indian charge, he was sure. Duncan nodded with approval, but he pointed out that the day when the explosion of the cannon was looked upon by the Indians as a miraculous thunder was passing.

  He seemed more pleased with other arrangements, the chief of which was a device for instantly closing the heavy gate, which was covered with a double or treble layer of massive bulls’ hides, strong enough to turn bullets, unless they were fired close up and at exactly the right angle. With the gate closed, there were pockets on all the walls, high up, known only to him, his son, and two very trusted men. In case the Indians who freely entered the fort should start a disturbance, the gate easily could be closed by means of the powerful levers that were attached to it, and Meany and the other leaders could call their best men to the walls, to which they were instructed to follow. There, even if they had no weapons at the moment in their hands, they readily could find the caches of well-kept and loaded rifles, and, with these, they could control any number of wranglers in the interior of the fort or be prepared at need to beat off a charge from without.

  “You’ve got everything ready,” agreed Duncan, “unless the game is played against you with a joker.”

  Meany nodded. He knew, as every other frontier trader knew, that until his fort became much larger and better defended than it was at present, it would be impossible to keep it against a resolute assault in such numbers as the Indians were able to muster. Every fort was in danger of being wiped out every trading season, but the traders clung to their work. The profits were big, and if one fort in three was wiped out, that was charged to the account of “loss,” and the business went on. Human life was not counted in adding up the bills of the frontier.

  When Duncan had been conducted over the fort in detail, however, his gloomy face became more tranquil. From the western rampart, he looked out at the stretch of plain, where the numerous caravans that could not be included in the fort were arranged, each in its own ring. They looked defenseless enough, but Meany pointed out that he himself had insisted that a strong guard be maintained in each of these caravans day and night. While that was done, they made powerful outworks to the fort itself, a wagon fort being no child’s play to be carried.

  Duncan looked back inside at the few Indians who were sauntering here and there in the fort, all with empty hands. He looked out at the swarming throngs on the grass of the prairie.

  “When does the trading begin?” he asked.

  “Whenever the big chiefs can agree on the rates of sale,” said Meany.

  “And what do they want?”

  “Spotted Calf is down here with the Piegans. He’s reasonable enough. A cupful of sugar for a fine buffalo robe is his price. And other things in proportion. One could get on with that sort of a scale.”

  Duncan looked deliberately at the speaker, and a slow smile spread upon his face. Infinite greed sparkled in his eyes. “Is that the way of it?” he asked a little huskily.

  Meany smiled in turn. “That would be the way with the Blackfeet, and all their robes and their beaver. But Little Bull is up here with the Cheyennes, and he has different ideas. He wants a quart of sugar, at least. And other things on the same scale.”

  It was an early day in trading, and still prices were as absurd as this, but Duncan scowled as he listened. It was not large profits that he wanted, it was a fortune, and the greater the fortune, the
more logical that he should win it.

  “I never knew anything but trouble to come out of Cheyennes,” he said. “Can you keep off the Cheyennes and trade with the Blackfeet?”

  “Not without starting a war between them.”

  “Which way would the Crows jump?”

  “I don’t know. The three of ’em hate each other’s hearts, anyway. Suppose the Crows should go against the Cheyennes. There are a few Pawnees in with the Crows, and that would turn the whole lot.”

  “Aye,” said Duncan. “Three Pawnees would poison a whole nation against the Cheyennes. Why, it would be a good thing to let the fight come, charge into the middle of it, and help the Crows and the Blackfeet to take scalps. I’m getting to be an old man, and I need a little skirmishing to make me feel young again.”

  “Oh, aye,” said Meany. He patted the stock of his rifle. The head of brass tacks glimmered in it like wicked, little yellow eyes. “Yes, yes,” he said. “There’s a place for fighting, but not at a fort. We build forts to keep out of war, eh? Not to have trouble.”

  Duncan sighed even while he nodded. “It’s true,” he said. “If you start with a battle at your first trading, there’ll always be suspicion, and the fort will have a bad name. We have to start Fort Meany right. And how, then? Why, to make terms, to make terms. Have you tried a present to Little Bull?”

  “I gave him a paint horse that his mouth was watering over,” said Meany. “But it didn’t change him. He’s like a baby. The more you give him, the more he wants. I gave him the horse, and he asked where was the saddle to put on its back.”

  “Well?”

  “I gave him the saddle, and he asked where was the rifle to balance across the pommel of it, and the pouch of shot and the horn of powder.”

  Duncan snorted in fury. “Something tells me that the hair is sitting loose on the head of that Indian,” he said.

  The teeth of Meany clicked in equal anger. “I had to swallow it and say nothing,” he said. “And now he’s holding up the start of the trade. The Indians get restless. I don’t know. Another few days and some of the bucks may begin to drift off. Mine is not the only fort in the land. And there are a pair of ’breeds up here from the American Fur Company, ready to persuade the whole crowd over to their place.”

  Duncan groaned with vexation. “They’re getting ready for a race,” he pointed out. “Let’s go there and watch. There’s no better way to mix around among the braves. Take along some sugar and whiskey. Give a cupful here and there among the chiefs. Tell them that Little Bull is a great chief, but that he doesn’t understand trading. I know some of those Piegans, too, or I’m unlucky. We’ll see what we can do.”

  So they started out together, and their young men followed them, not obviously as a bodyguard, but always lingering in the rear, anxious to watch the tactics of their elders, trailing in to listen to snatches of conversation, and always with their long rifles ready.

  At the gate, a girl of twenty, dressed in neatly fitted deerskin, bright with beadwork and quillwork, and riding a gray pony with beads braided into its long mane, swept up to them. She was Meany’s daughter, Helen. Could she go out to see the races?

  Duncan looked at Meany, and Meany looked at Duncan. There was always danger in a crowd such as that yonder on the plain. And yet, as Meany pointed out in a murmur, it might prove to the Indians the friendship of the trader, if he trusted his daughter in the throng. So it was agreed.

  “Whatever you do, never get out of my sight,” said Meany. “Never ride fast. Keep your horse in hand. Never meet the eye of any buck. Look at the women, pat the children on the head. Give a few beads around. You can talk a little Piegan. If you see a squaw that looks like a chief’s wife, talk to her, find out the name of her husband, and tell her how famous he is.”

  The girl nodded, laughed, and was instantly gone through the gate, with most of these instructions vanished from her brain before she was outside the fort.

  Meany called to his son.

  “Have you let Helen go out?” the boy asked gloomily as he came up.

  “I have. You follow her. Take Rixon, over yonder. Follow her close.”

  “I can follow her,” said the brown-faced youngster, “but I dunno that I can follow her eyes. She’s mighty free with ’em.”

  “Do what you’re told, and save your talk for afterward.”

  So Charles Meany went out to trail his sister through the throng, and with him, he took a long, loose-jointed son of toil—Rixon, the trapper, a man of war.

  Just beyond the gates were the circles of the wagons, but beyond the wagons, the plain was covered with Indians, and the water of the little river was continually dashed to white as hasty riders galloped through from side to side.

  It was the prime of the year. The prairies were covered with fresh green. The shaggy winter coats of the ponies were gone, in many cases, which left the little animals shining with sweat and with velvet. Others were patched over like mangy buffalo, and still others resolutely clung to their winter coats, long and wolfish.

  But the blood was stirring in horse and man. The wind was fresh and sweet with the scent of the grass, crushed by thousands of hoofs in the hollow and on the hills. The sound of the voices was deep with the words of men, and bright with the chatter of the women and the thin, high notes of the children, and always a minor tone floated in the air where an infant was crying.

  When Duncan and Meany came up, they found that a distance had been cleared along the bank of the stream, where the ground was perfectly level. Two heaps of sod had been put up some hundred and fifty yards apart. The races were to be run around these.

  And now two ponies were prepared—a Piegan and a Crow were ready for the start. Every Piegan voice was offering a bet on his nation’s representative, and every Crow was offering a bet on the Crow.

  “Hello, Meany,” said Duncan. “Helen, there, has found out the tail of my caravan.”

  IV

  Looking through the tossing throng of hands, of passing horses, Henry Meany saw that his daughter Helen was at the side of young Tarlton, but her attention was not for him alone. It streamed forth over the entire crowd of men and women and children. Her smile shone from the distance, and the long, massive braids of her hair glimmered like polished copper as she turned here and there. Her head was never quiet, and neither was her hand.

  “She’s found something new,” said Meany. “Darned if she ain’t always finding something new. What’s old is dull for her. What’s new is beautiful.”

  “Even a new fool?”

  “It looks that way. But how’s she to know the freak?”

  “By the talk of him, and the fool look in his face,” said the stern partisan. “We’d better go down and listen to him.”

  They advanced as the Indians bet right and left. There is nothing that an Indian man loves so much as any game of chance. Now, with sparkling eyes, they offered blankets, beaver skins worth $6 each, even knives and guns, bows and arrows. The horses themselves were stripped of saddles and offered in the risk, and sometimes the full panoply of horse and saddle; and bull-skin shield; and long lance, bow, and filled quiver.

  There was not much arguing about values at that moment. It was anything to make a bet as big as could be afforded, and make it quickly before the race began. For every Indian was confident that the race would go to his representative. What matter, then, if he offered a bet twice the size of that of his adversaries? Soon all would be in his possession.

  “This is good work,” said Meany. “It will loosen them up. It will pile a lot of goods in the hands of half as many Indians as had them before. And then they’ll be ready for fast trading, and cheap trading.”

  “That’s not true,” Duncan declared. “The more an Indian has, the more he wants. Your poor beggar of a brave is generous. He’d give you his skin. A rich chief would make a fat living in Jerusalem.”

  “Or Scotland,” suggested Meany.

  Duncan accepted this reference to his nationality with a br
oad grin.

  “The more they have, the more they want,” insisted Duncan, and Meany did not deny the truth of this.

  The excitement was growing high. The warriors, conscious that they were the center of attraction, were parading their ponies up and down the line, and each of them made a speech at the same time. Each announced that he trusted in his pony, that it never had been fairly beaten, that the Sky People would give it speed this day, and invited friends to show their friendship by betting a little more on his chances.

  In the midst of this growing noise and excitement, Meany and Duncan arrived at the place where the girl was at the side of young Tarlton—in time to hear him exchanging words with a Blackfoot who was calmly suggesting that the white man should give him the bright scarf around his neck, because he had a squaw in his teepee who would like to have it.

  And Tarlton answered with perfect good nature, gravely assuring the Blackfoot in his own tongue that nothing could give him more pleasure than to bestow such a gift upon him, and that it was really for this purpose that he had come across the plains, but, that having come such a distance for such a purpose, he could not dream of letting the matter stand with such a paltry gift as this. However, the very cockles of his heart would be warmed by persuading the chief to accept a more splendid gift, which he would bring to him on another day.

  Meany listened most intently to this conversation with a good deal of amazement.

  “How’s this, Duncan?” he asked. “I’ve never heard a greenhorn talk bang-up smooth Blackfoot like this before.”

  “Every idle man has plenty of time to learn one thing,” said Duncan. “While the men were on the boat, watching the banks and talking to the pilot, this blockhead spent his time talking with the half-breed Blackfoot that he has along with him, and he wrote down words and memorized ’em, until you see how he can talk. The same way on the prairies. The men went out to throw a few buffalo and an antelope, now and then, while this fellow stayed behind with the half-breed and chattered Indian rot. D’you know the best that can come of him? A squawman. He’d shed his fine feathers and be glad of it, if he could find a woman to keep him.”