The Steel Box Page 7

  Red Shirt was eloquent at once. His thought was of immediate and complete surrender. From White Thunder, as he said, the Cheyennes had received many services. They could make no repayment for the rain he had brought to them, the Dakota scalps that he had placed in their lodges, or the members of the tribe who he had saved from sickness. It was fitting, therefore, that they should set the white man free. The additional argument was that of Roger Lincoln’s enmity. Certainly they should set White Thunder free at any rate. In addition, they had great treasures offered to them by Roger Lincoln. And, beyond this, there was now thrown into the scale the terrible hostility of this famous warrior. It would be far better at once to return to Roger Lincoln and propose amity. He, Red Shirt, had hardly been able to keep his tongue quiet when he had heard the magnificent proposals of the white hunter refused.

  After him spoke Rushing Wind, the same who had made the wager with Torridon about the crossing of the river. He was equally hot on the other side. What treasures, he asked, could be offered by any man to offset the magic powers of White Thunder? He, Rushing Wind, had seen the great enchanter at work. He had seen spirits called down from the air in the form of hawks. He had seen the work those spirits could accomplish. White Thunder knew the language of bird and beast. He could draw the buffalo out of the plains and bring them close to the village. Everything was possible to him. He was a treasure in himself beyond price. As for Roger Lincoln, he was one man. What could one man perform against the entire Cheyenne nation?

  If only, then, they could get what they came for and win the squaw who would keep the enchanter happy, they could wish for nothing else. The medicine of White Thunder would be turned against Roger Lincoln himself and soon that famous scalp would dry in the lodge of a Cheyenne. He, Rushing Wind, hoped that he would be the lucky man. At least, he was not afraid.

  This speech of a headlong youth was received in silence. Only the eyes of the older warriors turned gravely to one another, exchanging a thought.

  Finally Standing Bull said, though gently: “No white man ever is alone. Roger Lincoln is a name that can gather a tribe of white warriors. Because I am leading this party, now I must think deeply and pray to Heammawihio for guidance. For myself I wish nothing. I am doing all this for the sake of our people. I shall pray with a pure heart. May I receive guidance.”

  He filled his pipe. The others withdrew softly from about him.

  XII

  When night came down upon the camp of the Cheyennes, where they had improvised some comfort in the woods, they found that the clement weather had changed much for the worse. The moon for which they hoped did not appear. Instead, the sky was covered with deep gray clouds in the evening, and, as the darkness began, the rain commenced, also, falling small and soft, but gradually penetrating their clothes with wet and cold. The trees gradually were drenched with moisture. A heavy pattering began in the woods that sounded like the fearless striding to and fro of wild beasts. The fire burned small, with much smoke and little heat, as all the fuel was soaked that they threw into the heap. There was small comfort for them. They were in a far land. They were close to the power of the white men. And their hearts were heavy with the knowledge that they had done wrong, and were contemplating a greater evil.

  For, as the darkness came thick, and the rain began to descend, Standing Bull had advanced from among the woods and announced that, after consulting the Great Spirit with all his heart, he could not understand any message, and therefore he took it for granted that they should continue with the work on which they had come.

  That evening he would look over the situation. As for the rest of the warriors, he recommended to them that they earnestly pray that a dream might be sent to one of them suggesting the proper course for the war party.

  With that, Standing Bull left them and slipped away among the woods and among the scattering houses until he came close to the square-built log cabin of Samuel Brett.

  Here he began to prowl with the greatest caution. The cold of the rain, driven to the bone by occasional flurries of wind, he quite disregarded. He moved in the darkness as though he had been moving in the open light of day, and trying to make his approach unnoticeable under the battery of a hundred suspicious eyes. From rock to rock, from bush to bush, he worked softly, until he came close to the house.

  After that, he worked back and forth under the wall. By the kitchen door he paused and smelled cookery. He was hungry, and the odors tempted him. There were such fragrances as he never before had connected with food. However, he banished this passing weakness at once. Completing his tour of investigation, he found two windows, but both were closed and darkened against the night and the rising storm.

  He came back to the kitchen door, and pressed close to it. It was a work of some danger. There were considerable cracks in this home-made door, and through the cracks ran long fingers of light that traveled far into the night and showed the rain sifting down steadily. In addition, those fingers of light must be touching his person, and, if anyone were abroad to watch him, he surely would be revealed.

  However, it was necessary for him to learn something of what was inside the house. So he put his eye to crack after crack until through one of the apertures he was able to see the corner that included the stove and the sink.

  Two women were there washing tins and dishes. One washed. One dried. He could see the face of her who dried. She was young, slender, dark of eye and skin. She was pretty enough to have caused the heart of a young brave to leap. Doubtless it was she who White Thunder wanted.

  As for she who washed, her back was turned. She was doubtless the squaw of the house. Yet her back was not flat and broad. The nape of her neck was delicately rounded. However, the squaws among the whites were not like the squaws among the Indians.

  He waited, listening. Their voices were like the sounds of two brooks running through a still woodland, bubbling, and often running together with laughter. Those sounds were pleasant to the ear of Standing Bull. But he thought of the strong-handed squaws in his teepee. He thought of Owl Woman, who nearly had slain herself in the intensity of mourning for her lost lord.

  Then his mind grew more contented. To each people, their own women. But his own women were the best in the world, he was sure. Besides, one of them had given him a male child so that the memory of Standing Bull should be kept strong and his spirit alive among men.

  At last, she who washed turned from the sink. The heart of Standing Bull sank. She was as young as the other. She was younger. Her hair was not dark, but light. The radiance from the lamp shone through it, making it glisten at the outer edges. Her cheek and throat were as sleek as the cheek and throat of a baby. She had large, dim eyes. They did not dance and sparkle like the eyes of the darker girl. There was not much life in this paler creature. And, therefore, doubtless White Thunder could not have chosen her.

  However, he who is wise reserves his judgment. Standing Bull reserved his. Who, after all, can step inside the mind of the white man and be sure of his thoughts? He lives by contraries. The creature will fight, but he cares nothing for the glory of the counted coup, or the symbol of the scalp. He fights to destroy bodies. The red man understands that there is no true death except to the spirit. And so in all things, the white man, in spite of his medicine and his wisdom, lives by contraries, doing foolish things. Therefore, it might be that White Thunder would prefer this paler girl, this dim-eyed, sad-faced creature.

  But why, after all, should she be sad?

  Something stirred at the edge of the woods. Instantly Standing Bull was close down at the foot of the wall of the house, where the darkness covered him. Footsteps came up to the door, a big man was seen there, striped by the light that shone through the cracks. He thrust the door open.

  As the door closed upon him, gay voices broke out. There was laughter. Standing Bull understood not a word, but very well he recognized the sound of rejoicing. Then he crept back to his place of espial and stared through again. The big man had placed on the floor th
e body of a young deer that he had carried upon his shoulders. Now he sat at a table near the stove—a powerful fellow with huge shoulders and a stern face. His clothes were beginning to steam. A white squaw, older than the two girls, came hurrying in to him. They exchanged words. Her hands were full of cloth, and with it she returned to the other room. The dark-eyed beauty went with her and left the paler girl behind.

  She, as was right, tended the hunter. The fragrance of coffee made the air sweet and pungent. There was the scent of frying venison, and the meat hissed and snapped as the heat seared it. Bread was brought forth. It glistened white as snow as the knife of the girl divided it. She laid the food before the hunter. The mouth of Standing Bull watered and he swallowed hard.

  Swiftly the hunter ate, and hugely. Like a starved brave returned from the arduous warpath he devoured his food. Then he leaned back in his chair and lit a pipe.

  Oh, white man, are there no spirits in your world? Without ceremony, brutally, crudely, he filled and lit the pipe. He leaned back in his chair, chewing the short stem, shifting it from side to side in his white, strong teeth. As he smoked, he talked. The girl was washing dishes again. Tobacco smoke filled the air. A heavy, thick, sweet odor, unlike that of Indian tobacco.

  The hunter drew the smoke into his lungs. It poured forth at his mouth and his nose as he talked. His words became living images in smoke. They rose and melted slowly and flattened against the ceiling.

  Standing Bull watched, fascinated. He felt the muscles tightening along his spine. He bristled as a dog bristles, when a strange animal comes near. And Standing Bull, out of instinct, fumbled the haft of his big hunting knife. That rough blond scalp would look very good in the lodge.

  The man inside now spoke and beckoned, and the girl stood before him. Was she his daughter? Was she his youngest squaw?

  No, the white man kept only one squaw, for in all things his ways were the ways of ignorance. It was even said—a wonder not to be believed—that sometimes he helped the women in their work around the lodge.

  Now the girl stood before the big man. He put out his hand and laid it on her head, and her head bowed a little, as though under a weight.

  He spoke to her. His rough voice was softened. His gesture indicated that he talked of some far thing. He shook his head and denied that far thing. Then he appeared to argue. He talked with gestures of both hands. He was eager. Almost he was appealing.

  To all of this talk the girl replied with short answers. A brief word. A syllable. Presently tears began to run down from her eyes. They fell on her round, bare arms. They fell on her hands, which were folded together. She was not talking at all, and indeed she did not seem even to be hearing what the big hunter said. Her eyes looked off at that distant thing of which they had been speaking before. They were sad eyes. They were like blue smoke. Looking at them, Standing Bull sighed a little.

  Suddenly the white hunter jumped up from the table and threw his hands above his head. Standing Bull grinned, for he expected the blow to fall on the girl, but, instead, the white man struck his own head and then rushed from the room.

  But still the young squaw paid no attention. She was still looking into the distance, still weeping. She sank into a chair. Her head fell against the wall. Her eyes closed. She wept no longer. She was as one who grief has sickened past tears.

  Then by revelation Standing Bull knew what he should have known before. This was the girl.

  Dim of eye she was now, but it is happiness that lights a woman, as fire lights a branch and the branch lights the forest. She wept, and she was in sorrow for the sake of a man who was far away, and that man was White Thunder. It was all clear, clearer than any story told in pictures, as though an old sage were at hand to explain their meaning.

  Standing Bull slipped away through the woods and rejoined his anxious companions. He came among them with a glistening eye, but he said not a word. Much that was done on distant trails was better left untold until one returned to the village. For what was described on the trail, that was remembered, but what was unnamed at the time, afterward could be expanded.

  He closed his eyes. He was regardless of the smoke from the fire that was pouring into his face. Somehow, he would be able to turn this night’s adventure and the real peril he had endured into a story of some worth. He was sure of that, if only he could have patience. He would invent; it needs time to search the spirit.

  Then, by dim degrees, his thoughts turned back to the white girls. He tried to think of the one of the dancing eyes. But instead, all that he had in mind was the eyes of the other, like blue smoke, covered with sorrow.

  He wondered greatly how she would appear if she saw White Thunder. Was not White Thunder just as the girl? There was a veil over his eyes, also. Partly of thought and magic, partly of grief.

  Standing Bull no longer wondered that his friend the white magician sorrowed for this girl. He was himself beginning to understand that there is other beauty than that found in red skins. The taste of it, like the taste of a strange and delightful food, entered the soul of Standing Bull.

  He stood up. Rather, he leaped to his feet with a grunt that startled his companions out of slumber.

  “What is wrong?” asked Red Shirt.

  “Nothing,” said the leader. “But the fire is all smoke, and the evil ghosts are throwing it into my face.”

  XIII

  Big Samuel Brett hardly had settled to his second pipe and the narration of the day’s hunting when a hand struck at the door. He went to open it, cautiously, one hand ready to thrust it home again and the other hand occupied with his rifle.

  “It’s Roger Lincoln,” said a voice from the rain.

  The door twitched wide, instantly, and Roger Lincoln came in, glistening with the wet, his deerskins soaked through and blackened.

  “You been swimming in it, it looks like,” said Samuel Brett. “Come in and dry yourself out at the stove.”

  Roger Lincoln waved his hand. “I’ve been stalking,” he said.

  “Deer?”

  “Indians.”

  Brett whistled. His eyes widened, and then drew into the shadows of his brows. “Where?”

  “The trail came here.”

  “To Fort Kendry?”

  “To your house.”

  “It’s that darned drunk Crow with the crooked nose,” suggested Samuel Brett.

  “It’s a tall Cheyenne by the name of Standing Bull. He was watching through your door.”

  “I got nothing to do with the Cheyennes. Never traded with them, worse luck,” said Brett.

  “They want something to do with you, however. That fellow was very curious.”

  “Every Indian is half wolf,” said Brett easily. “They gotta go snoopin’ and sniffin’ around. Why didn’t you collar him?”

  “My hands are off that gang until they leave the fort. I’ve told them so. After they start, the knife is out.”

  “With the Cheyennes? You could’ve picked an easier job. Ah, then I understand. It’s young Torridon?”

  “It is.”

  The face of Samuel Brett darkened. “You’re wrong again, Lincoln. There never was a Torridon that wasn’t a snake and deserved to be treated the same as a snake. And if . . .”

  The hand of Lincoln was raised again, and Brett shrugged his shoulders.

  “I shouldn’t talk that way. I’ve tried to argue you out of it before, Roger. But if the kid showed a white face to you, he’ll show a black face before you’re through with him. I know the breed.”

  “Perhaps you do,” said Roger Lincoln a little coldly. “But I’ve not stopped in to talk about Torridon. I’ve come to tell you that a hard-headed, hard-handed Cheyenne brave is watching you. Why, I don’t know, but I don’t think he’s going to do you much good. Man, watch your house!”

  He said it with gravity, and the other nodded assent.

  “I’ll get Murphy’s dog, tomorrow, and keep it around. He’s a man-eater, that brute. And Pat offered him to me.”

  “T
ake the dog by all means . . . and sleep light. Good bye.”

  He was gone, in spite of the hospitable protests of Brett. The door closed. Roger Lincoln went back toward his house with a mind filled with misgivings.

  Samuel Brett, however, was not alarmed. He had lived all his days in the midst of danger. That which is too well known is apt to be taken too lightly.

  To be sure, when he went to bed that night he saw that the door was well secured, and that his rifle and two pistols were at hand nearby him. But after that he slept profoundly, and the rumble of his snoring filled the house.

  The night grew wilder and wilder.

  Before morning, the Cheyennes in their clearing had been forced up from their blankets, and they huddled around a newly built fire, removing to the shelter of the trees. It was only a mock shelter. The heavy rain, driven far in through the foliage by the whip of the wind, came sluicing down upon them in quantities. Over their heads the storm yelled and roared, and the day came slowly upon them.

  They prepared a meal of a few mouthfuls. When it was eaten, they smoked a pipe with some difficulties. And then Standing Bull asked for dreams.

  Yellow Man was the only one who could oblige. He declared he had dreamed that he was back in the Cheyenne village, and that, in the middle of the night, he had stepped outside his lodge. Suddenly the night had become terribly dark. All was blackness. A wind hooted in his ears like an owl. And when he stumbled back toward the lodge, it was gone. He ran here and there. He could find nothing, though his teepee stood in the center of the camp.

  At last a star began to shine. He found that he was alone in the midst of a great plain. Nothing was near him. There was no village in sight. It was as though the wind had blown him to a great distance. He dropped to the ground, thereby hoping to see something against the horizon. Something he did see. It was a tree standing on a hill. The star was right behind it, and, indeed, the star was in the middle of it. From the distant heavens, straight through that tree or ghost of a tree, the star was shining.