THE RED MAN AND THE WHITE
Well out upon the prairie, clear of the limits of the tiny town, two men
were headed due west, into the night, apparently into the infinite.
There was no moon, but here, with nothing to cast a shadow, it was not
dark. The month was late October, and a suggestion of frost was in the
air: on the grass blades of the low places, was actually present. As was
all but usual at that day, the direction they were going bore no trace
of a road; but the man astride the vicious-looking roan cayuse who led
the way, the same copper-brown man with the corduroys of Bob Manning's
store, showed no hesitation. Like a hound, he seemed to discern
landmarks where none were visible to the eye. He rode without saddle or
blanket, or spur, or quirt; yet, though he had not spoken a word from
the moment they had started, the roan with the tiny ears had not broken
its steady, swinging, seemingly interminable lope, had scarcely appeared
conscious of his presence. Almost as unit seemed this beast and human.
It was as though the man were born in his place, as though, like a
sailor on a tiny boat, accustomed through a lifetime to a rolling,
uncertain equilibrium, the adjustment thereto had become involuntary as
a heart beat, instinctive as breathing. A splendid picture he made there
in the starlight and the solitude; but of it the man who followed was
oblivious. Of one thing alone he was conscious, and that was that he was
very tired; weary from the effect of an unusual exercise, doubly
exhausted in the reaction from excitement passed. With an effort he
urged his own horse alongside the leader, drew rein meaningly.
"Let's hold up a bit," he protested. "I've come twenty-five miles to-day
already, and I'm about beat." He slapped the breast pocket of his coat a
bit obviously, and as his companion slowed to a walk, produced a
silver-mounted, seal-covered flask and proffered it at arm's length.
"The cork unscrews to the left," he explained suggestively.
The dark figure of the guide made no motion of acceptance, did not even
glance around.
"Thanks, but I never drink," he declined.
"Not even to be sociable,"--the hand was still extended,--"not when I
ask you as--a friend?"
"I am a Sioux," simply. "I have found that liquor is not good for an
Indian."
For a second the white man hesitated; then with something akin to a
flush on his face, he returned the flask to his pocket untasted.
Again, without turning, the other observed the motion.
"Pardon me, but I did not mean to prevent you."
He spoke stiffly, almost diffidently, as on unused to speech with
strangers, unused to speech at all; but without a trace of embarrassment
or of affectation.
"I do not judge others. I merely know my people--and myself."
Again the stranger hesitated, and again his face betrayed him. He had
scratched an aborigine, and to his surprise was finding indications of a
man.
"I guess I can get along without it," shortly. "I--" he caught himself
just in time from framing a self-extenuation. "I didn't have time--back
there," he digressed suddenly, "to thank you for what you did. I wish to
do so now." He was looking at the other squarely, as the smart civilian
observes the derelict who has saved his life in a runaway. Already,
there under the stars, it was difficult to credit to the full that
fantastic scene of an hour ago; and unconsciously a trace of the real
man, of condescension, crept into the tone. "You helped me out of a
nasty mess, and I appreciate it."
No answer. No polite lie, no derogation of self or of what had been
done. Just silence, attentive, but yet silence.
For the third time the white man hesitated, and for the third time his
face shaded red; consciously and against his will. Even the starlight
could not alter the obtrusive fact that he had cut a sorry figure in the
late drama, and his pride was sore. Extenuation, dissimulation even,
would have been a distinct solace. Looking at the matter now, the
excitement past, palliation for what he had done was easy, almost
logical. He had not alone conformed. He had but done, without
consideration, as the others with him had done. But even if it were not
so, back in the land from which he had come, a spade was not always so
called. His colour went normal at the recollection. The habitual, the
condescending pressed anew to the fore.
He inspected the silent figure at his side ingenuously, almost
quizzically; as in his schoolboy days he had inspected his plodding
master of physics before propounding a query no mortal could answer.
"I know I waved the white flag back there as hard as any of them," he
proffered easily. "I'm not trying to clear myself; but between you and
me, don't you think that Pete was merely bluffing, there at the end when
you came?" The speaker shifted sideways on the saddle, until his weight
rested on one leg, until he faced the other fair. "The fellow was drunk,
irresponsibly drunk, at first, when the little chap stirred him up; but
afterwards, when he was sober.... On the square, what do you think he
would have done if--if you hadn't happened in?"
For so long that Craig fancied he had not given attention to the
question, the guide did not respond, did not stir in his seat; then
slowly, deliberately, he turned half about, turned and for the first
time in the journey met the other's eyes. Even then he did not speak;
but so long as he lived, times uncounted in his after life, Clayton
Craig remembered that look; remembered it and was silent, remembered it
with a tingling of hot blood and a mental imprecation--for as indelibly
as a red-hot iron seals a brand on a maverick, that look left its
impress. No voice could have spoken as that simple action spoke, no
tongue thrust could have been so pointed. With no intent of discourtesy,
no premeditated malice was it given; and therein lay the fine sting, the
venom. It was unconscious as a breath, unconscious as nature's joy in
springtime; yet in the light of after events, it stood out like a signal
fire against the blackness of night, as the beginning of an enmity more
deadly than death itself, that lasted into the grave and beyond. For
that silent, unwavering look set them each, the red man and the white,
in their niche; placed them with an assurance that was final. It was a
questioning, analytic look, yet, unconcealed, it bore the tolerance of a
strong man for a weak. Had that look been a voice, it would have spoken
one word, and that word was "cad."
For a moment the two men sat so, unconscious of time, unconscious of
place; then of a sudden, to both alike, the present returned--and again
that return was typical. As deliberately as he had moved previously, the
Indian faced back. His left arm, free at his side, hung loose as before.
His right, that held the reins, lay motionless on the pony's mane. In no
detail did he alter, nor in a muscle. By his side, the white man
stiffened, jerked without provocation at the cruel curb bit, until his
horse halted uncertain; equally without provocation, sent the rowels of
his long spurs deep into the sensitive flank, with a curse held the
frightened beast down to a walk. That was all, a secondary lapse, a
burst of flowing, irresponsible passion like a puff of burning
gunpowder, and it was over; yet it was enough. In that second was told
the tale of a human life. In that and in the surreptitious sidelong
glance following, that searched for an expression in the boyishly soft
face of his companion. But the Indian was looking straight before him,
looking as one who has seen nothing, heard nothing; and, silent as
before the interruption, they journeyed on.
A half hour slipped by, a period wherein the horses walked and galloped,
and walked again, ere the white man forgot, ere the instinct of
companionship, the necessity of conversation, urban-fostered, gained
mastery. Then as before, he looked at the other surreptitiously, through
unconsciously narrowed lids.
"I haven't yet asked your name?" he formalised baldly, curtly.
The guide showed no surprise, no consciousness of the long silence
preceding.
"The Sioux call me Ma-wa-cha-sa: the ranchers, How Landor."
Craig dropped the reins over his saddle and fumbled in his pockets.
"The Indian word has a meaning, I presume?"
"Translated into English, it would be 'the lost pappoose.'"
The eyebrows of the Easterner lifted; but he made no comment.
"You have been with my uncle, with Mr. Landor, I mean, long?"
"Since I can remember--almost."
The search within the checkered blouse ended. The inquisitor produced a
pipe and lit it. It took three matches.
"My uncle never wrote me of that. He told me once of adopting a girl.
Bess he called her, was it not?"
"Yes."
Already the pipe had gone dead, and Craig struggled anew in getting it
alight, with the awkwardness of one unused to smoking out of doors.
"Do you like this country, this--desert?" he digressed suddenly.
"It is the only one I know."
"You mean know well, doubtless?"
"I have never been outside the State."
Unconsciously the other shrugged, in an action that was habitual.
"You have something to look forward to then. I read somewhere that it
were better to hold down six feet of earth in an Eastern cemetery than
to own a section of land in the West. I'm beginning to believe it."
No comment.
"I suppose you will leave though, some time," pressed the visitor. "You
certainly don't intend to vegetate here always?"
"I never expect to leave. I was born here. I shall die here."
Once more the shoulders of the Easterner lifted in mute thanksgiving of
fundamental difference. Of a sudden, for some indefinite reason, he felt
more at ease in his companion's presence. For the time being the sense
of antagonism became passive. What use, after all, was mere physical
courage, if one were to bury it in a houseless, treeless waste such as
this? The sense of aloofness, of tranquil superiority, returned. He even
felt a certain pleasure in questioning the other; as one is interested
in questioning a child. Bob Manning's store and Pete Sweeney were
temporarily in abeyance.
"Pardon me, if I seem inquisitive," he prefaced, "but I'll probably be
here a month or so, and we'll likely see a good deal of each other. Are
you married?"
"No."
"You will be, though." It was the ultimatum of one unaccustomed to
contradiction. "No man could live here alone. He'd go insane."
"I eat at the ranch house sometimes, but I live alone."
"You won't do so, though, always." Again it was the voice of finality.
The Indian looked straight ahead into the indefinite distance where the
earth and sky met.
"No, I shall not do so always," he corroborated.
"I thought so." It was the tolerant approval of the prophet verified.
"I'd be doing the same thing myself if I lived here long. Conformity's
in the air. I felt it the moment I left the railroad and struck
this--wilderness." Once again the unconscious shoulder shrug. "It's an
atavism, this life. I've reverted a generation already. It's only a
question of time till one would be back among the cave-dwellers. The
thing's in the air, I say."
Again no comment. Again for any indication he gave, the Indian might not
have heard.
Craig straightened, as one conscious that he was talking over his
companion's head.
"When, if I may ask, is it to be, your marriage, I mean?" he returned.
"While I am here?"
For an instant the other's eyes dropped until they were hid beneath the
long lashes, then they returned to the distance as before.
"It will be soon. Three weeks from to-day."
"And at the ranch, I presume? My uncle will see to that, of course."
"Yes, it will be at the ranch."
"Good! I was wondering if anything would be doing here while I was
here." Craig threw one leg over the pommel of his saddle and adjusted
the knickerbockers comfortably. "By the way, how do you--your
people--celebrate an event of this kind? I admit I'm a bit ignorant on
the point."
"Celebrate? I don't think I understand." The Easterner glanced at his
companion suspiciously but the other man was still looking straight
ahead into the distance.
"You have a dance, or a barbecue or--or something of that sort, don't
you? It's to be an Indian wedding, is it not?"
Pat, pat went the horses' feet on the prairie sod. While one could count
ten slowly there was no other sound.
"No, there will be no dance or barbecue or anything out of the ordinary,
so far as I know," said a low voice then. "It will not be an Indian
wedding."
Craig hesitated. An instinct told him he had gone far enough. Lurking
indefinite in the depths of that last low-voiced answer was a warning, a
challenge to a trespasser; but something else, a thing which a lifetime
of indulgence had made almost an instinct, prevented his heeding. He was
not accustomed to being denied, this man; and there was no contesting
the obvious fact that now a confidence was being withheld. The latent
antagonism aroused with a bound at the thought. Something more than mere
curiosity was at stake, something which he magnified until it obscured
his horizon, warped hopelessly his vision of right or wrong. He was of
the conquering Anglo-Saxon race, and this other who refused him was an
Indian. Racial supremacy itself hung in the balance: the old, old issue
of the white man and the red. Back into the stirrup went the leg that
hung over the saddle. Involuntarily as before he stiffened.
"Why, is it not to be an Indian wedding?" he queried directly. "You
seemed a bit ago rather proud of your pedigree." A trace of sarcasm
crept into his voice at the thinly veiled allusion. "Have you forsaken
entirely the customs of your people?"
Pat, pat again sounded the horses' feet. The high places as well as the
low bore their frost blanket now, and the dead turf cracked softly with
every step.
"No, I have not forsaken the customs of my people."
"Why then in this instance?" insistently. "At least be consistent, man.
Why in this single particular and no other?"
The hand on the neck of the cayuse tightened, tightened until the tiny
ears of the wicked little beast went flat to its head; then of a sudden
the grip loosened.
"Why? The answer is simple. The lady who is to be my wife is not an
Indian."
For an instant Craig was silent, for an instant the full meaning of that
confession failed in its appeal; then of a sudden it came over him in a
flood of comprehension. Very, very far away now, banished into remotest
oblivion, was Pete Sweeney. Into the same grave went any remnants of
gratitude to the other man that chanced to remain. Paramount, beckoning
him on, one thought, one memory alone possessed his brain: the
recollection of that look the other had given him, that look he could
never forget nor forgive. "Since you have told me so much," he
challenged "you will probably have no objection to telling me the lady's
name. Who is it to be?"
Silence fell upon them. Far in the distance, so far that had the white
man seen he would have thought it a star, a light had come into being.
Many a time before the little roan had made this journey. Many a time he
had seen that light emerge from the surface of earth. To him it meant
all that was good in life: warmth, food, rest. The tiny head shook
impatiently, shifted sideways with an almost human question to his rider
at the slowness of the pace, the delay.
"That light you see there straight ahead is in the ranch house,"
digressed the Indian. "It is four miles away."
Again it was the warning, not a suggestion, but positive this time; and
again it passed unheeded.
"You have forgotten to answer my question," recalled Craig.
Swift as thought the Indian shifted in his seat, shifted half about;
then as suddenly he remembered.
"No, I have not forgotten," he refuted. "You tell me you have already
heard of Bess Landor. It is she I am to marry."
At last he had spoken, had given his confidence to this hostile stranger
man; not vauntingly or challengingly, but simply as he had spoken his
name. Against his will he had done this thing, despite a reticence no
one who did not understand Indian nature could appreciate. Then at
least it would not have taken a wise man to hold aloof. Then at least
common courtesy would have called a halt. But Clayton Craig was neither
wise nor courteous this night. He was a great, weary, passionate child,
whose pride had been stung, who but awaited an opportunity to retaliate.
And that opportunity had been vouchsafed. Moreover, irony of fate, it
came sugar coated. Until this night he had been unconscious as a babe of
racial prejudice. Now of a sudden, it seemed a burning issue, and he its
chosen champion. His blood tingled at the thought; tingled to the tips
of his well-manicured fingers. His clean-shaven chin lifted in air until
his lashes all but met.
"Do you mean to tell me,"--his voice was a bit higher than normal and
unnaturally tense,--"do you mean to tell me that you, an Indian, are to
marry a white girl--and she my cousin by adoption? Is this what you
mean?"
Seconds passed.
"I have spoken," said a low voice. "I do not care to discuss the matter
further."
"But I do care to discuss it," peremptorily. "As one of the family it is
my right, and I demand an answer."
Again the tiny roan was shaking an impatient head. It would not be long
until they were home now.
"Yes," answered the Indian.
"And that my uncle will permit it, gives his consent?" Again the
silence and again the low-voiced "Yes."
Over Craig's face, to his eyebrows and beyond, there swept a red flood,
that vanished and left him pale as the starlight about him.
"Well, he may; but by God I won't!" he blazed. "As sure as I live, and
if she's as plain as a hag, so long as her skin is white, you'll not
marry her. If it's the last act of my life, I'll prevent you!"
The voice of the white man was still, but his heart was not. Beat, beat,
beat it went until he could scarcely breathe, until the hot blood fairly
roared in his arteries, in his ears. Not until the challenge was spoken
did he realise to the full what he had done, that inevitable as time
there would be a reckoning. Now in a perfect inundation, the knowledge
came over him, and unconsciously he braced himself, awaited the move.
Yet for long, eternally long it seemed to him, there was none. The swift
reaction of a passionate nature was on, and as in Bob Manning's store,
the suspense of those dragging seconds was torture. Adding thereto,
recollection of that former scene, temporarily banished, returned now
irresistibly, cumulatively. Struggle as he might against the feeling, a
terror of this motionless human at his side grew upon him; a blind,
unreasoning, primitive terror. But one impulse possessed him: to be
away, to escape the outburst he instinctively knew was but delayed. In
an abandon he leaned far forward over his saddle, the rowel of his spur
dug viciously into his horse's flank. There was a deep-chested groan
from the surprised beast, a forward leap--then a sudden jarring halt.
As by magic, the reins left his hand, were transferred to another hand.
"Don't," said a voice. "It will not help matters any to do that. It will
only make them worse." The two horses, obeying the same hand, stopped
there on the prairie. The riders were face to face. "I have tried to
prevent this, for the sake of the future, I have tried; but you have
made an understanding between us inevitable, and therefore it may as
well be now." The voice halted and the speaker looked at his companion
fixedly, minutely, almost unbelievingly. "I know I am not as you white
men," went on the voice. "I have been raised with you, lived my life so
far with you; yet I am different. No Indian would have done as you have
done. I cannot understand it. Not three hours ago I saved your life. It
was a mere chance, but nevertheless I did it; and yet already you have
forgotten, have done--what you have done." So far he had spoken slowly,
haltingly; with the effort of one to whom words were difficult. Now the
effort passed. "I say I cannot understand it," he repeated swiftly. "Mr.
Landor has been very good to me. For his sake I would like to forgive
what you have done, what you promise to do. I have tried to forgive it;
but I cannot. I am an Indian; but I am also a man. As a race your people
have conquered my people, have penned them up in reservations to die;
but that is neither your doing nor mine. We are here as man to man. As
man to man you have offered me insult--and without reason." For the
first time a trace of passion came into the voice, into the soft brown
face. "I ask you to take back what you have just said. I do not warn
you. If you do so, there is no quarrel between us. I merely ask you to
take it back."
He halted expectant; but there was no answer, Craig's lips were
twitching uncontrollably, but he did not speak.
Just perceptibly the Indian shifted forward in his seat, just
perceptibly the long brown fingers tightened on his pony's mane.
"Will you not take it back?" he asked.
Once more the white man's lip twitched. "No," he said.
"No?"
"No."
That was all--and it was not all. For an instant after the Easterner had
spoken the stars looked down on the two men as they were, face to face;
then smiling, satiric they gazed down upon a very different scene: one
as old and as new as the history of man. Just what happened in that
moment that intervened neither the white man nor the red could have
told. It was a lapse, an oblivion; a period of primitive physical
dominance, of primitive human hate. When they awoke--when the red man
awoke--they were flat on earth, the dust of the prairie in their
nostrils, the short catch of their breath in each other's ears, out one,
the dark-skinned, was above. One, again the dark-skinned, had his
fingers locked tight on the other's throat. This they knew when they
awoke.
A second thereafter they lay so, flaming eyes staring into their
doubles; then suddenly the uppermost man broke free, arose. In his ears
was the diminishing patter of their horses' hoofs. They were alone there
on the prairie, under the smiling satiric stars. One more moment he
stood so; he did not turn; he did not assist the other to rise; then he
spoke.
"I do not ask your pardon for this," he said. "You have brought it upon
yourself. Neither do I ask a promise. Do as you please. Try what you
have suggested if you wish. I am not afraid. Follow me," and,
long-strided, impassive as though nothing had happened, he moved ahead
into the distance where in the window of the Buffalo Butte ranch house
glowed a light.