the bat-skin, to his scalp-lock, then opening his war-bags, which no
other person ever touched on pain of death, he quickly daubed the war
paint on his face. These two important things having been done, he
filled his ammunition bag with a double handful of cartridges, tied his
chief’s war-bonnet under his chin, and grasping his rifle, war-ax and
whip, he slid out of the tepee. An excited squaw hastily brought
his best war-pony with its tail tied up, as it always was in these
troublesome times. The Fire Eater slapped his hand violently on its
quarter, and when he raised it there was the red imprint of the hand of
war. The frightened animal threw back its head and backed away, but with
a bound like a panther the savage was across its back, a thing which in
tranquil times the old man was not able to do.
This was the first time in years that the warrior had had a chance to
wear his war-bonnet in battle. Rapidly adjusting his equipment as he sat
his plunging horse, he brought his quirt down with a full arm swing and
was away. By his side many sturdy war-ponies spanked along. At the ford
of the river they made the water foam, and the far side muddy, with
their dripping. They were grotesque demons, streaked and daubed, on
their many-colored ponies. Rifles clashed, pony-whips cracked, horses
snorted and blew, while the riders emitted the wild yelps which they had
learned from the wolves. Back from the hills came their scouts sailing
like hawks, scarcely seeming to touch the earth as they flew along.
“The pony-soldiers are coming--they are over the hill!” they cried.
The crowded warriors circled out and rode more slowly as their chiefs
marshaled them. Many young Red Lodge braves found the Fire Eater’s
place, boys who had never seen the old man in war, but who had listened
in many winter lodges where his deeds were “smoked.” As they looked
at him now they felt the insistency of his presence--felt the nervous
ferocity of the wild man--it made them eager and reckless, and they
knew that such plumes as the Fire Eater wore were carried in times like
these.
The view of the hill in front was half cut by the right bank of the
coulee up which they were going, when they felt their hearts quicken.
One, two, a half dozen, and then the soldiers of the Great Father came
in a flood across the ridge, galloping steadily in column, their yellow
flags snapping. The Fire Eater turned and gave the long yell and was
answered by the demon chorus--all whipping along. The whole valley
answered in kind. The rifles began to pop. A bugle rang on the hill,
once, twice, and the pony-soldiers were on their knees, their front a
blinding flash, with the blue smoke rolling down upon the Indians or
hurried hither and thither by the vagrant winds. Several followers of
the Fire Eater reeled on their ponies or waved from side to side or
clung desperately to their ponies’ necks, sliding slowly to the ground
as life left them. Relentless whips drove the maddened charge into the
pall of smoke, and the fighting men saw everything dimly or not at all.
The rushing Red Lodges passed through the line of the blue soldiers,
stumbling over them and striking downward with their axes. Dozens of
riderless troop horses mingled with them, rushing aimlessly and tripping
on dangling ropes and reins. Soon they were going down the other side of
the hill and out of the smoke_;_ not all, for some had been left behind.
Galloping slowly, the red warriors crowded their cartridges into their
guns while over their heads poured the bullets of the soldiers, who
in the smoke could no longer be seen. On all sides swarmed the rushing
warriors mixed inextricably with riderless troop horses mad with terror.
As the clouds of Indians circled the hill, the smoke blew slowly away
from a portion of it, revealing the kneeling soldiers. Seeing this the
Fire Eater swerved his pony, and followed by his band charged into and
over the line. The whole whirling mass of horsemen followed. The scene
was now a mass of confusion which continued for some time, but the
frantic Fire Eater, as he dashed about, could no longer find any
soldiers. As the tumult quieted and the smoke gave back, they all seemed
to be dead.
[Illustration: 13 The rushing Red Lodges passed through the line of the blue soldiers]
Dismounting, he seized a soldier’s hair and drew his knife, but was not
able to wind his fingers into it. He desisted and put back his knife
muttering: “A dog--he had not the hair of a warrior--I will not dance
such a scalp.”
The Fire Eater looked around him and saw the warriors hacking and using
their knives, but the enemy had been wiped out. Horses lay kicking and
struggling, or sat on their haunches like dogs with the blood pouring
from their nostrils. He smiled at the triumph of his race, mounted his
pony and with his reeking war-ax moved through the terrible scene. The
hacking and scalping was woman’s work--anyone could count a _coup_ here.
As for the Fire Eater, his lodge was full of trophies, won in single
combat. Slowly he made his way down the line of horror until he came to
the end--to the place where the last soldier lay dead, and he passed
on to a neighboring hill to view the scene. As he stood looking, he
happened to cast his eyes on the ground and there saw a footprint. It
was the track of a white man’s moccasin with the iron nails showing, and
it was going away from the scene of action. Turning his pony he trotted
along beside the trail. Over the little hills it ran through the sage
brush. Looking ahead, the Fire Eater saw a figure in a red blanket
moving rapidly away. Putting his pony to speed he bore down upon the
man with his rifle cocked. The figure increased its gait, and the red
blanket fell from the shoulders revealing a blue soldier. It was but an
instant before the pony-drew up alongside and the white man stood still,
breathing heavily. The Fire Eater saw that his enemy had no gun, the
thought of which made him laugh: “A naked warrior; a man without even a
knife; does the man with the iron moccasins hope to outrun my war-pony?”
The breathless and terrified white man held out his hand and spoke
excitedly, but the Fire Eater could not understand. With menacing
rifle he advanced upon his prey, whereat the white man, suspecting his
purpose, quickly picked up a loose stone and threw it at him but only
hit the pony.
The Fire Eater straightway shot the soldier in the thigh and the latter
sat down in the dirt. The old chief got off his horse, chuckling while
he advanced, and sat down a few yards from the stricken man. He talked
to him, saying: “Brother, I have you now. You are about to die. Look
upon the land for the last time. You came into my country to kill me,
but it is you who are to be killed.”
The white soldier could not make out the intention of the Indian for the
language was mild and the face not particularly satanic. He pleaded for
his life, but it had no effect upon the Fire Eater, who shortly arose
and approached him with his battle-ax. The man saw clearly now what
was to happen and buried his face in his hands. Too often had the
hunter-warrior stood over his fallen quarry to feel pity; he knew
no more of this than a bird of prey, and he sank his three-pronged
battle-ax into the soldier’s skull and wiped it on his pony’s shoulder
saying: “Another dog’s head; I will leave him for the women and the
boys. If he had thrown away his iron moccasins his fire would not be
out. I give the meat to the little gray wolves and to the crows which
bring us messages from the spirit-world.” And he resumed his mount.
Riding back, he saw the squaws swarming over the battlefield, but the
warriors had gone. Men that he met in the valley told him that they
had more soldiers surrounded in the bluffs up the valley, but that the
white-faces could not get away and that the Indians were coming back for
fresh ponies. Enough men had been left to hold the besieged.
Coming to his lodge he got a new pony, and, as he mounted, said to his
youngest wife: “Wan-ha-ya, give me my little boy: put him up behind me
on my pony. I will show him war.”
The squaw held the chubling and put him on the desired place, where he
caught on like a burr. The Fire Eater made his way to the battle ground.
There the squaws were stripping and mutilating. Finding a dead soldier
who was naked, he dismounted, setting the boy on the ground. Pulling
his great knife from its buckskin sheath he curled the fat little hand
around its haft and led him to the white body. “Strike the enemy, little
son, strike like a warrior,” and the Fire Eater, simulating a blow,
directed the small arm downward on the corpse. Comprehending the
idea, the infant drew up and drove down, doing his best to obey the
instructions, but his arm was far too weak to make the knife penetrate.
The fun of the thing made him scream with pleasure, and the old Fire
Eater chuckled at the idea of his little warrior’s first _coup._ Then he
rode back to the lodge.
VIII. The Medicine-Fight of the Chis-chis-chash.
Hither and yon through the valleys dragged the wagon-soldiers, while the
Indians laughed at them from the hills. In the time of the yellow-grass
the tribe had made a successful hunt and the sides of their lodges were
piled high with dry meat. Their kettles would boil through this snow.
As the tops of the mountains grew white, the camp was moved into a
deep gorge of the Big Horn Mountains out of the way of the trailing
Yellow-Eyes. For a thousand feet the rock walls rose on either side.
A narrow brook wound down between their narrow ways. Numerous lateral
canons crossed the main one, giving grass and protection to their
ponies. As it suited the individual tastes of the people, the lodges
were placed in cozy places. When the snows fell the Indians forgot the
wagon-soldiers, as they feasted and gossiped by their camp-fires.
They felt secure in their eerie home, though the camp-cryer frequently
passed, shouting: “Do not let your ponies wander down the canon and make
trails for the Yellow-Eyes to see.” The women worked the colored
beads and porcupine quills, chatted with each other, or built discreet
romances as fancy dictated. The men gambled, or made smoke-talks by the
night fires. It was the Indian time of social enjoyment.
Restless young men beat up the country in search of adventure; and
only this day a party had arrived with Absaroke scalps which they
were dancing after the sun had gone. The hollow beat of the tom-toms
multiplied against the sides of the canon, together with the wild
shrieking and yelling of the rejoicers; but the old Fire Eater had grown
weary of dancing scalps. He had danced his youthful enthusiasm away,
caring more to sit by his lodge fire playing with his little boy or
passing the pipe with men who could remember the days which were better
than these--with men who could recall to his mind the ardor of his lost
youth. Thus he sat on this wild, whooping night with old Big Hand by his
side to smoke his talk, and with his son asleep across his lap.
“Where did the war-party leave its trail as it came to the lodges?” he
asked.
Big Hand in reply said: “The man who strikes said they came over the
mountains--that the snow lay deep. They did not lead up from the plains.
They obeyed the chiefs. If it was not so, the camp-soldiers would have
beaten them with sticks. You have not heard the women or the dogs cry.”
“It is good,” continued the Fire Eater. “The wagon-soldiers will not
find a trail on the high hills. The snow would stop their wheels. They
will dream that the Chis-chis-chash were made into birds and have flown
away.” The Fire Eater chuckled as he loaded his pipe.
Then Big Hand: “I have heard, brother, that ponies passed the herders at
the mouth of the canon last smoke. It was cold, and they had their robes
tight over their heads. It is bad.”
“Yes, you talk straight. It is bad for the pony-trails to show below
where the land breaks. Some dog of an Absaroke who follows the Grey Fox
may see them. Ponies do not go to live in the hills in the time of snow.
The ponies will not travel straight, as the herders drive them back.
They will understand. With another sun, I shall call the council. It
will talk the herders’ eyes open. The young men have closed ears in
these days. The cold makes their bones stiff. Brother, when we were
young we could see a horse pass in the night. We could smell him. We
could tell if he had a man on his back.”
Big Hand gave wise consideration to his companion’s statement, saying
it was as he spoke. “Brother, those big horses which we took from the
pony-soldiers run badly in the herd. They gather in a bunch and run
fast. They go over the herders when they see the valley. They will do
nothing unless you strike them over the head. They are fools like their
white riders were.”
So the old men gravely passed the pipe over the little things of life,
which to them bore all their interest in the world. The squaw combed her
hair and from time to time put fresh sticks on the fire. After a while
the boy woke up and stretched himself cubbishly across his father’s
knees. The ancient one gave him a piece of fresh meat, which he held in
both hands as he gnawed it, smearing his chubby face with grease. Having
devoured his morsel he blinked sleepily, and the old Indian tucked him
away in the warm recesses of his old buffalo-robe couch, quite naked,
as it was their custom to sleep during the winter nights. Long sat the
smokers, turning their tongues over youthful remembrances, until Big
Hand arose and drawing his robe about him, left the lodge.
The Fire Eater removed the small buckskin bag which contained his little
brown bat’s skin from his scalp-lock and smoked to it saying: “Keep the
big horses from running down the canyon--keep the eyes of the herders
open while I sleep--keep the little boy warm--keep the bad spirits
outside the lodge after the fire can no longer see them.” With these
devotions concluded, he put the relic of the protection of the Good Gods
in his war-bag which hung on his resting-mat over his head. Undressing,
he buried himself in his buffalo robes. The fire died down, the tom-toms
and singing in the adjoining lodges quieted gradually, and the camp
slept. All was still, and it was bitter cold outside, though the
Chis-chis-chash lay snugly under their hairy rugs, drawing them over
their heads, shutting out the world of spirits and sound and cold.
In the ceaseless round of time the night was departing to the westward,
when as though it were in a dream the old warrior was conscious of
noise. His waking sense was stirred. Rapid, frosty crackling of snow
ground by horse’s hoofs came through the crevices of his covering. All
unusual, he sat up with a savage bang, as it were, and bent a stiff ear
to the darkness. His senses were electric, but the convolutions of
his brain were dead. A rifle shot, far away but unmistakable. Others
followed; they came fast. But not until the clear notes of a bugle
blazed their echoing way up the rock walls did he, the Fire Eater, think
the truth. He made the lodge shake with the long yell of war. He did
the things of a lifetime now and he did them in a trained, quick way.
He shoved his feet into his moccasins and did no more because of the
urgency of the case; then he reached for his rifle and belt and stood
in the dark lodge aroused. His sleep was gone but he did not comprehend.
Listening for the briefest of moments, he heard amid the yelping of his
own people the dull, resonant roar which he knew was the white man’s
answer.
Fired into a maddened excitement he snatched up his precious boy, and
seizing a robe ran out of the lodge followed by his squaw. Overhead the
sky was warming but: the canon was blue dark. Every moment brought the
shots and roar nearer. Plunging through the snow with his burden, the
Fire Eater ran up a rocky draw which made into the main canyon. He had
not gone many arrow-flights of distance before the rushing storm of the
pony-soldiers swept past his deserted lodge. Bullets began to whistle
about him, and glancing back he saw the black form of his squaw stagger
and lie slowly down in the snow. He had, by this time, quite recovered
the calm which comes to the tired-out man when tumult overtakes him.
Putting the boy down on a robe behind a rock, and standing naked in the
frosty air he made his magazine gun blaze until empty; then picking the
boy up ran on higher up the rocks until he was on the table land of the
top of the canon. Here he resumed his shooting, but the darkness and
distance made it difficult to see. The noise of the fight clattered and
clanged up from the depths to him and echoed down from above where the
charge had gone. Other Indians joined him and they poured their bullets
into the pony-soldiers. The Bad Gods had whispered to the Yellow-Eyes;
they had made them see under the snow. The Chis-chis-chash were dead
men, but they would take many with them to the spirit-land. The Fire
Eater felt but a few cartridges in his belt and knew that he must use
them sparingly. The little boy sat crying on the buffalo robe. Holding
his smoking rifle in one hand, he passed the other over his scalp-lock.
The bat-skin medicine was not there. For the first time since the Good
Gods had given it to him, back in his youth, did he find himself without
it. A nameless terror overcame him. He was a truly naked man in the
snow, divested of the protection of body and soul.
[Illustration: 14 He made his magazine gun blaze until empty]
He meditated long before he reached down and gathered up his offspring.
Carefully wrapping up the wailing infant, he handed it to a squaw who
stood near shivering and moaning wildly. “Stay here and hold my boy. I
am going back.”
Shoving cartridges into his magazine, he made his way down, the light
snow flying before him. Rounding the rocks he could see down into the
main canon; see the pony-soldiers and their Indian allies tearing down
and burning the lodges. The yellow glare of many fires burned brightly
in contrast with the cold blue of the snow. He scanned narrowly the
place where his own lodge had been and saw it fall before many hands to
be taken to their fires. With raised shoulders and staring eyes he stood
aghast. He drunk in the desecration in all its awful significance. The
bat’s skin--the hand of the Good Gods--was removed from him; his shadow
was as naked as his back.
In the snow a hundred yards below him lay his young squaw, the mother of
his boy, and she had not moved since she lay down.
As the pony-soldiers finally saw the stark figure of the Indian among
the rocks they sent a shower of bullets around him. He had no medicine;
the Bad Gods would direct the bullets to his breast. He turned and ran
frantically away.
The last green-grass had seen the beplumed chief with reddened battle-ax
leading a hundred swift warriors over the dying pony-soldiers, but now
the cold, blue snow looked on a naked man running before bullets, with
his medicine somewhere in the black smoke which began to hang like a
pall over the happy winter camp of the bravest Indians. The ebb and flow
of time had fattened and thinned the circumstances of the Fire Eater’s
life many times, but it had never taken his all before. It had left him
nothing but his boy and a nearly empty gun. It had placed him between
the fire of the soldiers’ rifles and the cruel mountain winds which
would pinch his heart out.
With his boy at his breast he flew along the rim-rock like a crow,
hunting for shelter from bullets and wind. He longed to expend his
remaining cartridges where each would put out a white man’s fire.
Meanwhile, recovering from their surprise, the Indians had gathered
thickly on the heights and fought stiffly back. Being unable to follow
them, the pony-soldiers drew back, but as they retreated they left the
village blazing, which the Chis-chis-chash could not prevent. Their
rifles had only handed them over to the hungry winter.
The Fire Eater sat muffled on a ledge, firing from time to time, and
anxiously scanning his shots. The cold made him shake and he could not
hold his rifle true. His old, thin blood crept slowly through his veins,
and the child cried piteously. His fires were burning low; even the
stimulus of hate no longer stirred him as he looked down on the
white men who had burned his all and shot his wife and were even then
spattering his den in the rocks with lead. He gave up, overpowered by
the situation. With infinite difficulty he gathered himself erect on
his stiffened joints and took again his burden in his trembling arms.
Standing thus on the wind-swept height, with the bullets spotting the
rocks around him, he extended his right hand and besought the black,
eddying smoke to give him back his bat-skin; he begged the spirits of
the air to bring it to him. He shouted his harsh pathos at a wild and
lonely wind, but there was no response.
Then off through the withering cold and powdery snow moved the black
figure of despair tottering slowly away from the sound of rifles which
grew fainter at each step. He chattered and mumbled, half to himself,
half to the unseen influences of nature, while the child moaned weakly
under his clutched robe. When he could but barely hear the noises of the
fight, he made his way down into the canon where he shortly came upon
a group of his tribesmen who had killed a pony and were roasting pieces
over a log fire. They were mostly women and children, or old, old men
like himself. More to note than their drawn and leathery faces was the
speechless terror brooding over all. Their minds had not digested
their sudden fate. If the young warriors broke before the guns of the
pony-soldiers, worse yet might overtake them, though the windswept table
lands dismayed them equally with the bullets. Munching their horse-meat,
clutching their meager garments, they elbowed about the fires saying
little. In their homeless helplessness their souls deadened. They could
not divine the immediate future. Unlike the young warriors whose fires
flashed brighter as the talons of Death reached most fiercely for them,
they shuddered and crouched.
[Illustration: 15 He shouted his harsh pathos at a wild and lonely wind]
In the light of day they could see how completely the ravishing fire had
done its work. Warriors came limping back from the battle, their robes
dyed with a costly vermilion. They sat about doing up their wounds in
filthy rags, or sang their death-songs amid the melancholy wailing of
the squaws.
Having warmed himself and quieted the boy, the Fire Eater stalked down
the canon, past the smoking poles, stopping here and there to pick up
fragments of skins which he used to swaddle the boy. Returning warriors
said the soldiers were going away, while they themselves were coming
back to get warm. Hearing this, the old man stalked down the creek
toward the place where his lodge had been. He found nothing but a
smouldering heap of charred robes and burnt dried meat. With a piece of
lodge pole he poked away the ashes, searching for his precious medicine
and never ceasing to implore the Good Gods to restore it to him. At
last, dropping the pole, he walked up the side canon to the place where
his wife had fallen. He found her lying there. Drawing aside the robe he
noticed a greenish pallor and fled from Death.
Finding the ponies tethered together by their necks, he caught them,
and improvising packs out of old robes and rawhide filled them with
half-burnt dried meat. With these he returned to the fires, where he
constructed a rude shelter for the coming night. The boy moaned and
cried through the shivering darkness as the old Fire Eater rocked him in
his arms to a gibberish of despairing prayer.
Late in the night, the scouts came in saying that the walking-soldiers
were coming, whereat the Indians gathered their ponies and fled over the
snow. The young men stayed behind and from the high cliffs fought back
the soldiers. Many weak persons in the retreating band sat down and
passed under the spell of the icy wind. The Fire Eater pressed along
carrying his rifle and boy, driving his ponies in a herd with others.
It was too cold for him to dare to ride a horse. The crying boy shivered
under the robe. The burden-bearer mumbled the troubled thoughts of his
mind: “My mystery from the Good Gods is gone; they have taken it; they
gave it to the fire. I am afraid. The bad spirits of the wind will get
under my robe. They will enter the body of my boy. Oh! little brown bat,
come sit on my hand! Do not let them take the boy!”