The Steel Box Page 3

  She painted the rosy picture with a good deal of warmth. And suddenly Torridon said gravely: “Let us talk no more about it, Young Willow. Are you tired of doing the work in this lodge?”

  “I? No, no!” cried the squaw.

  “Then stay with me, and I shall not ask for a Cheyenne girl as a wife. There is only one woman in the world who I could marry, Young Willow.”

  “And she is not in this camp?”

  “She is far away.”

  “She is a Blackfoot,” said Young Willow instantly. “They are tall, and a short man wants a tall wife. They have big eyes, and the white men love only big eyes.” Her own small eyes became mere glints of light.

  “No,” said Torridon. “Big eyes are good to look at, but not to look. It is not a Blackfoot girl. I never have seen a Blackfoot.”

  “Then you have seen a Sioux girl smiling. They always are smiling, and they always are untrue.”

  “In short,” said Torridon impatiently, “it is no Indian girl at all.”

  “A white woman?” asked Young Willow.

  “Yes.”

  “She is tall and proud and rich,” said Young Willow.

  “No, she is small,” mused Torridon. “Or rather, she is no size at all, but she fits into my mind and heart . . .”

  “As the saddle fits the back of a horse,” suggested Young Willow.

  Torridon merely sighed.

  “When you were carried away in the storm,” said the squaw, “and disappeared over the prairie, then you went to Fort Kendry to find her there?”

  But, at this direct question, Torridon recovered from his dream, and shrugged his shoulders. “I am going to sleep,” he said abruptly.

  He settled against the backrest and closed his eyes. Young Willow was too well trained in the lodge of her husband to utter a word when one of the lords of creation was resting. Therefore, Torridon heard nothing except the light, faint click of beads in the rapid fingers of the squaw from time to time.

  And he passed into another of the weary, sad vigils that he had kept so many times before. At last he actually slept and dreamed of great woe and misery, a dream so vivid that dreary, wailing voices thrummed in his ears loudly. He wakened to find that the sounds were no dream at all, but that from hundreds of throats, apparently, a paean of grief was rising through the village. The noise came slowly toward the teepee. He heard the screaming of women, who seemed maddened with woe.

  Young Willow dashed into the lodge, her hair flying in long strings, her breast heaving.

  “Why do so many people cry out, Young Willow?” he asked her, bewildered.

  “You!” shrieked the squaw, shaking her bony fist at him. “You that make medicine when you wish, but let our men go out to die! It would have been better for us if you had been left in the sky!”

  “But what has happened? Has someone died?”

  “Has someone died?” exclaimed the squaw. “Eleven men are dead and Rising Hawk has brought home the rest, and all of the eight are wounded.”

  “Rising Hawk has brought them home?” exclaimed Torridon. “Then tell me what has become of Standing Bull?”

  “He was lost! He was lost! He was captured in the battle and carried away by the Dakotas, and by this time they are eating his heart! He was your friend! He was your friend! Could you make no medicine for him?”

  She ran out of the lodge again, raising her voice in a shrill keen as she burst through the entrance.

  Torridon, amazed and shocked, followed. It was to Standing Bull that he owed his first captivity in the tribe. It was to Standing Bull, also, that he owed his recapture after the first escape. And yet he had been so much with the Cheyenne giant that he was shocked to hear of his capture. There was little chance that such a warrior as Standing Bull would be spared except for the sake of tormenting him slowly to death when the Dakotas had reached their homes after the war raid.

  Torridon wrapped himself hastily in a robe and stepped into the entrance of the teepee in time to see the mass of the crowd of mourners move past. Every relative of a dead or wounded man was called upon by invincible custom to mourn, and with a dozen deaths to account for, it seemed that half the tribe was officially interested.

  At that moment Owl Woman went by. She was the young squaw of Standing Bull, the mother of his son, and as handsome a woman as could be found in the tribe. She had disfigured herself for life. Her hair was shaved from her head, and the scalp gashed across and across, so that blood had poured down and blackened over her face and shoulders. She went with bare legs, and along the calves she had ripped up the flesh again. As a crowning token of her affliction, she had actually cut off a finger of her left hand, and what with loss of blood and the shock of her grief and the torment of her exhaustion, she staggered rather than walked, her head rolled on her shoulders, and Torridon could hear her sobbing. It was not the noise of weeping, but the heavy gasp of exhaustion and hysteria.

  The other mourners made way for her, partly because no victim had been of so high a rank as her husband, and partly because she had honored herself and the whole nation by this perfect expression of her grief. A dreadful picture of despair and madness, she staggered on past Torridon and he closed his eyes, feeling very sick indeed at the sight.

  He did not need to ask questions. From the babble of the crowd and the exclamations of the mourners he learned the details sufficiently. Standing Bull and Rising Hawk actually had pushed so far into the land of the Dakotas that they had entered the deep and narrow ravine leading toward the village over which Spotted Antelope was the great chief. But while they were passing through, that formidable warrior had fallen upon them, taken them in the rear with a mighty attack, and crushed them.

  Standing Bull indeed had played the hero. He had allowed the remnant to get away, assisted as they were by the savage fighting of Rising Hawk, who had actually found time to count four coups and take a scalp in the short encounter.

  The sound of the mourning rolled farther away, though the very heart of Torridon still was stabbed from time to time by the sudden shriek of a woman. He opened his eyes and saw before him the silent form of High Wolf, robed to the eyes, and those eyes were fixed on the face of Torridon with a terrible malignity.

  V

  It was plain to Torridon that the anger of the war chief was less because of the loss that had fallen upon the young braves of his tribe than because of some passion that he held against the white man himself.

  “Hau,” said Torridon in quiet greeting.

  The chief, uninvited, strode past him to the interior of the lodge, and Torridon followed him, seeing that some tiding of grave importance was about to be communicated to him. When he faced High Wolf, the latter said harshly: “It is true that White Thunder does not love Standing Bull. Standing Bull brought him to the Cheyennes. On account of that, White Thunder has given over the whole war party to the Dakotas. Twelve men are dead. Twelve men are dead and scalped, or else they are in the hands of the enemy. Why have you done this thing, White Thunder? If you did not love Standing Bull . . . well, you have the thunder in your hand and you can throw the lightning. Why did you not kill him and let the rest go?”

  The first impulse of Torridon was open and frank disavowal, but suddenly he saw that merely to protest was of no avail whatever. To these red children of the prairie, he was the possessor of the most wonderful and potent medicine, and, if he wished, he could extend the aegis of his might over all their war parties, even the most distant. To deny that he possessed that power would, in the eyes of High Wolf, make him appear the merest hypocrite. It might mean, at once, a knife in the throat, or slow burning over a fire. He thought of this as he looked the old chief in the eye and answered slowly: “Even good medicine may be used wrongly.”

  High Wolf blinked and then frowned. “Then what did they do? Did you make medicine for them, after all? No man heard you so much as sing a song when they left the camp.”

  “Why should I sing songs or shake rattles like the other medicine men?” as
ked Torridon scornfully. “When the corn was dying and the dust was deep and white on the plains, did I sing a song to make the rain come?”

  “You called to it,” said High Wolf, “and the heavens were covered with clouds. Why did you not call again, and send strength to Standing Bull?”

  “If they had gone slowly and laid in wait,” said Torridon on the spur of the moment, “they would have had no harm. But they ran in like wild buffalo, and like buffalo they were killed.”

  High Wolf apparently checked an angry exclamation. Then he replied: “Before the night comes, we send out fifty braves to go north. Tell me, White Thunder. What will be their fortune?”

  Torridon was taken well aback. He had had to make medicine for these strange people before, but he had not been called upon to make prophecies.

  As Torridon paused, the chief continued: “Now Spotted Antelope rides far south from his village. He waits for us. How shall we pass him, or how shall we fight against him? He has two or threescore fighting men. Their hearts are big. They laugh at the Cheyennes. What medicine have you for that, White Thunder?”

  Like one who has his back against the wall, Torridon replied: “What is the use in sending the Sky People to help the Cheyennes, when the Cheyennes will not know how to use them?”

  The return of the chief fairly took his breath. “You have been one who speaks with a single tongue in the camp of the Cheyennes. Tell me now, White Thunder . . . will you give me your promise to ride with a war party against the Dakotas and never try to escape from them? Will you go with them, and make the Sky People fight on our side?”

  There was no possibility of refusal. The passion of the chief swept Torridon before it, like a cork on a flood. He dared not resist.

  “I can give you my word,” he said gloomily.

  High Wolf paused, his eyes still glittering. “I go to the young men,” he said. “Rising Hawk burns like a fire. He shall ride out again in spite of his wound. You, then, will ride with them and give them fortune?”

  Torridon, dumb with amazement and woe, merely nodded, and the old man was gone, leaving the boy regarding earnestly a most terrible fate. He had but the slenderest doubt as to what would come of this. Pawnee or Crow or Blackfoot, all were dangerous enough, but the Dakotas, each as able a warrior as ever bestrode a horse, were distinguished above all for their swarming numbers. They could redden the plains with their men, if they so chose. He who invaded their country was like a fly walking into a spider’s web.

  Young Willow came back into the lodge and, in silence, set about cleaning the rifle, though it needed no cleaning, and then laying out a pack that consisted of dried meat and ammunition, together with a few other necessaries. Plainly she had been told to do these things by High Wolf. And when Torridon glanced at her, he thought that he spied a settled malice in her expression.

  Ashur was brought, the saddle put on him. Still the sounds of mourning filled the camp, but other noises were blended with them. Wild yells and whoops cut the air, somewhere a battle song was being chanted, and, going to the entrance of the lodge, Torridon saw half a dozen braves in front of their teepees dancing about in the fantastic step of stiff-legged roosters. All were painted for war; several were wearing war bonnets of eagle feathers. Nearby their horses were being prepared by industrious squaws, just as Ashur was being fitted.

  The preparation was speedy. Torridon had known war parties to make medicine and go through formalities for a fortnight. Now everything was rushed through; the Cheyennes were red hot for vengeance, and old customs had to give way before the pressure.

  For his own part, he wondered that, on an expedition of such importance, every man worthy of carrying arms was not enlisted, leaving the defense of the camp to the very old and the very young. But Indian measures were rarely so whole-hearted as this. They loved war and they loved scalps, but they hated to commit all their forces to a single action. They believed in skirmishes rather than in pitched battles.

  So at last Rising Hawk was seen, mounted on a spirited pony, a dressing on his left forearm, which had been cut across by a bullet in the late action. Before him went two medicine men, complete in masks and medicine bags, and all the weird implements of their profession. As they came closer, they halted and held back, and one who had a mask like a wolf’s head over his shoulders pointed at Torridon, and then turned away.

  Of course they were jealous of him and of his reputation. Their income for healings and for soothsaying had fallen away sharply since the coming of the white man to their camp, with his marvels of rain-making, and all the rest. No doubt, in their heart of hearts they were wishing the worst of ill fortune upon the expedition that he was to accompany.

  Rising Hawk, however, greeted the white man courteously. Torridon mounted. They rode on from the camp. The warriors fell in behind them. Children and young braves rushed out to see them pass, and so the procession grew.

  At the edge of the camp, they broke into a gallop. Young boys, yelling like demons, rushed bareback before and behind them, and whirled around them like leaves in a wind. And so they were escorted as far as the verge of the river. Up its bank they passed until they came to the ford, crossed this, and at last they were committed to the width of the prairies.

  Torridon turned in the saddle, on the farther bank, and looked across the stream and back to the distant village. He felt almost a touch of homesickness in seeing it thus. Anything was preferable to that grim expedition against so dangerous a foe as the Sioux. But the dice had been cast and he was committed. Even so, he could not help considering a sudden break away from the Cheyennes, and then trusting to the speed of the black stallion to take him safely out of range of the pursuing bullets.

  His honor held him, albeit by a single thread, and he remained trailing at the rear of the party, full of his thoughts.

  A horseman dropped back beside him. It was Rushing Wind, his late guard, who was pointing an excited hand at the sky.

  “Look, White Thunder, already your thoughts are answered by the Sky People. They have sent down their messenger to give you good fortune again!”

  Torridon followed the direction of the pointing arm and saw that a hawk was circling slowly above them, keeping pace with the progress of the party. He forced back a melancholy smile from his lips.

  But in the meantime, every brave in the party had taken note of that hanging hawk against the sky, and the same thought seemed to fill every breast. Their eyes flashed. Rising Hawk could not keep from raising his long lance and shaking it victoriously against the sky, and the braves went onward with a great gaiety of demeanor. Already they had forgotten the recent crushing defeat that the Sioux had inflicted upon their nation. They were as full of confidence as a body of children at play.

  VI

  As though the sting of the wound in his arm was a constant spur, they went north like the wind, with Rising Hawk constantly urging them to greater efforts. A dozen horses dropped dead under the fierce riding. That was in the early days, and the rest grew thin, but wonderfully hard and fit, and the boys were easily able to keep the horse herd within striking distance of the riders. Torridon spared Ashur every other day. But even those alternate journeys on random ponies hardly were necessary, for Ashur was laughing at the miles. All his running under Torridon or with the herd barely had sufficed to thumb a little of the flesh off his ribs and cut the line of his belly a little harder and higher. But on the days when he ranged with the herd, the Indian boys were happy. There were four of them, like four young winged imps, ever flying here and there, merciless to the steeds, slaves to the braves on the warpath. But when Ashur ran with the herd, their work was nothing. He ranged back and forth at the rear of the trotting ponies. He guarded and guided them like sheep, and they feared him and respected him. He was a king among them.

  His size, his grandeur, his lofty air and matchless speed made Torridon feel every day more keenly his own lack of force of hand. He was as no one in the party. Surely, in battle, the least of all the warriors would do
far more than he.

  In the day he was little regarded, but in the evening, after food, Rising Hawk and the chief men of the party were sure to draw close to him and discuss plans and futures. He was very reticent. He had been forced to promise them good fortune. If that good fortune did not develop, he would get his throat cut as a reward for his false prophecy. In the meantime, he would not speak more, except enigmatic sentences.

  And so they came, at last, among the big, bleak, northern hills. They had seen nothing of the famous Spotted Antelope, whose party was rumored to be south by the river, waiting to intercept their passage. But the river was many days behind them. They had plunged for four days through the very heart of the Dakota lands, unspied. But on the fifth day they rode over a ridge and came swooping down on four horses and two men at the edge of a creek. So infinitely distant were these Sioux from any thought of danger that they could not believe their eyes until this mysterious Cheyenne charge had scooped them up and made them safe prisoners.

  The coups were duly counted, the scalps were promised, but then Rising Hawk determined to extract what information he could from the prisoners.

  The first was a stalwart brave of forty-five, hard as iron. He did not stir an eye or abate his contemptuous smile while splinters were driven under his nails and then set on fire. Torridon, transfixed with horror and fear, saw the Cheyennes prepared to take sterner measures and could not stand it. He snatched his pistol out and sent a bullet through the poor fellow’s brain.

  He half expected that the Cheyennes, their cruel taste once sharpened, would rush on him in a body. To his amazement, they took not the slightest heed of his action. They merely ripped the scalp away from the dead man and turned to the second prisoner. He had borne up as calmly as the other until this moment, but it appeared that the slaughtered warrior was his father. Now his nerves gave way. He was only a lad of fourteen or fifteen, early on the warpath. In another moment he was groaning forth answers to the questions of Rising Hawk.