THE BATTLE
Occupied for a few moments with the other at the wagon, Franklin ceased
to watch Juan, as he went slowly but not unskilfully about the work of
dressing the dead buffalo. Suddenly he heard a cry, and looking up,
saw the Mexican running hurriedly toward the wagon and displaying an
animation entirely foreign to his ordinary apathetic habit. He pointed
out over the plain as he came on, and called out excitedly: "_Indios!
Los Indios_!"
The little party cast one long, careful look out toward the horizon,
upon which now appeared a thin, waving line of dust. A moment later
the two wagons were rolled up side by side, the horses were fastened
securely as possible, the saddles and blanket rolls were tossed into
breastworks at the ends of the barricade, and all the feeble defences
possible were completed. Four rifles looked steadily out, and every
face was set and anxious, except that of the Mexican who had given the
alarm. Juan was restless, and made as though to go forth to meet the
advancing line.
"_Vamos--me vamos_!" he said, struggling to get past Curly, who pushed
him back.
"Set down, d----n you--set down!" said Curly, and with his strange,
childlike obedience, the great creature sat down and remained for a
moment submissively silent.
The indefinite dust line turned from gray to dark, and soon began to
show colours--black, red, roan, piebald--as the ponies came on with
what seemed an effect of a tossing sea of waving manes and tails,
blending and composing with the deep sweeping feather trails of the
grand war bonnets. Hands rose and fell with whips, and digging heels
kept up the unison. Above the rushing of the hoofs there came forward
now and then a keen ululation. Red-brown bodies, leaning, working up
and down, rising and falling with the motion of the ponies, came into
view, dozens of them--scores of them. Their moccasined feet were
turned back under the horses' bellies, the sinewy legs clamping the
horse from thigh to ankle as the wild riders came on, with no bridle
governing their steeds other than the jaw rope's single strand.
"Good cavalry, b'gad!" said Battersleigh calmly, as he watched them in
their perfect horsemanship. "See 'em come!" Franklin's eyes drew
their brows down in a narrowing frown, though he remained silent, as
was his wont at any time of stress.
The Indians came on, close up to the barricade, where they saw the
muzzles of four rifles following them steadily, a sight which to them
carried a certain significance. The line broke and wheeled,
scattering, circling, still rising and falling, streaming in hair and
feathers, and now attended with a wild discord of high-keyed yells.
"Keep still, boys; don't shoot!" cried Franklin instinctively. "Wait!"
It was good advice. The mingling, shifting line, obedient to some loud
word of commando swept again up near to the front of the barricade,
then came to a sudden halt with half the forefeet off the ground. The
ponies shuffled and fidgeted, and the men still yelled and called out
unintelligible sounds, but the line halted. It parted, and there rode
forward an imposing figure.
Gigantic, savage, stern, clad in the barbaric finery of his race, his
body nearly nude, his legs and his little feet covered with bead-laden
buckskin, his head surmounted with a horned war bonnet whose eagle
plumes trailed down the pony's side almost to the ground, this Indian
headman made a picture not easily to be forgotten nor immediately to be
despised. He sat his piebald stallion with no heed to its restive
prancing. Erect, immobile as a statue, such was the dignity of his
carriage, such the stroke of his untamed eye, that each man behind the
barricade sank lower and gripped his gun more tightly. This was a
personality not to be held in any hasty or ill-advised contempt.
The Indian walked his horse directly up to the barricade, his eye
apparently scorning to take in its crude details.
"Me, White Calf!" he exclaimed in English, like the croak of a parrot,
striking his hand upon his breast with a gesture which should have been
ludicrous or pompous, but was neither. "Me, White Calf!" said the
chief again, and lifted the medal which lay upon his breast. "Good.
White man come. White man go. Me hunt, now!"
He swept his arm about in a gesture which included the horizon, and
indicated plainly his conviction that all the land belonged to him and
his own people. So he stood, silent, and waiting with no nervousness
for the diplomacy of the others.
Franklin stepped boldly out from the barricade and extended his hand.
"White Calf, good friend," said he. The Indian took his hand without a
smile, and with a look which Franklin felt go through him. At last the
chief grunted out something, and, dismounting, seated himself down upon
the ground, young men taking his horse and leading it away. Others,
apparently also of rank, came and sat down. Franklin and his friends
joined the rude circle of what they were glad to see was meant to be an
impromptu council.
White Calf arose and faced the white men.
"White men go!" he said, his voice rising. "Injun heap shoot!"
"B'gad, I believe the haythen thinks he can scare us," said
Battersleigh, calmly.
Franklin pointed to the carcasses of the buffalo, and made signs that
after they had taken the meat of the buffalo they would go. Apparently
he was understood. Loud words arose among the Indians, and White Calf
answered, gesticulating excitedly:
"Heap good horse!" he said, pointing to the horses of the party.
"White man go! Injun heap get horse! Injun heap shoot!"
"This is d----d intimidation!" shouted Battersleigh, starting up and
shaking a fist in White Calf's face.
"Give up our horses? Not by a d----d sight!" said Curly. "You can
heap shoot if you want to turn loose, but you'll never set me afoot out
here, not while I'm a-knowin' it!"
The situation was tense, and Franklin felt his heart thumping, soldier
though he was. He began to step back toward the wagons with his
friends. A confused and threatening uproar arose among the Indians,
who now began to crowd forward. It was an edged instant. Any second
might bring on the climax.
And suddenly the climax came. From the barricade at the rear there
rose a cry, half roar and half challenge. The giant Mexican Juan, for
a time quieted by Curly's commands, was now seized upon by some impulse
which he could no longer control. He came leaping from behind the
wagons, brandishing the long knife with which he had been engaged upon
the fallen buffalo.
"_Indios_!" he cried, "_Indios_!" and what followed of his speech was
only incoherent savage babblings. He would have darted alone into the
thick of the band had not Franklin and Curly caught him each by a leg
as he passed.
The chief, White Calf, moved never a muscle in his face as he saw his
formidable adversary coming on, nor did he join in the murmurs that
arose among his people. Rather there came a glint into his eye, a
shade of exultation in his heavy face. "Big chief!" he said, simply.
"Heap fight!"
"You bet your blame life he'll heap fight!" said Curly, from his
position upon Juan's brawny breast as he held him down. "He's good for
any two of you, you screechin' cowards!"
Curly's words were perhaps not fully understood, yet the import of his
tone was unmistakable. There was a stirring along the line, as though
a snake rustled in the grass. The horse-holders were crowding up
closer. There were bows drawn forward over the shoulders of many young
men, and arrows began to shiver on the string under their itching
fingers. Once more Franklin felt that the last moment had come, and he
and Battersleigh still pressed back to the wagons where the rifles lay.
The Indian chief raised his hand and came forward, upon his face some
indescribable emotion which removed it from mere savagery, some
half-chivalrous impulse born perhaps of a barbaric egotism and
self-confidence, perhaps of that foolhardy and vain love of risk which
had made White Calf chief of his people and kept him so. He stood
silent for a moment, his arms folded across his breast with that
dramatic instinct never absent from the Indian's mind. When he spoke,
the scorn and bravado in his voice were apparent, and his words were
understood though his speech was broken.
"Big chief!" he said, pointing toward Juan. "White Calf, me big
chief," pointing to himself. "Heap fight!" Then he clinched his hands
and thrust them forward, knuckles downward, the Indian sign for death,
for falling dead or being struck down. With his delivery this was
unmistakable. "Me," he said, "me dead; white man go. Big chief"
(meaning Juan), "him dead; Injun heap take horse," including in the
sweep of his gesture all the outfit of the white men.
"He wants to fight Juan by himself," cried Franklin.
"Yes, and b'gad he's doin' it for pure love of a fight, and hurray for
him!" cried Battersleigh. "Hurray, boys! Give him a cheer!" And,
carried away for the moment by Battersleigh's own dare-deviltry, as
well as a man's admiration for pluck, they did rise and give him a
cheer, even to Sam, who had hitherto been in line, but very silent.
They cheered old White Calf, self-offered champion, knowing that he had
death in a hundred blankets at his back.
The meaning of the white men was also clear. The grim face of White
Calf relaxed for a moment into something like a half-smile of pride.
"Heap fight!" he repeated simply, his eyes fixed on the vast form of
the babbling giant. He dropped his blanket fully back from his body
and stood with his eyes boring forward at his foe, his arms crossed
arrogantly over his naked, ridging trunk, proud, confident, superb, a
dull-hued statue whose outlines none who witnessed ever again forgot.
There was no time to parley or to decide. Fate acted rapidly through
the agency of a half-witted mind. Juan the Mexican was regarding the
Indian intently. Perhaps he gathered but little of the real meaning of
that which had transpired, but something in the act or look of the
chieftain aroused and enraged him. He saw and understood the
challenge, and he counted nothing further. With one swift upheaval of
his giant body, he shook off restraining hands and sprang forward. He
stripped off his own light upper garment, and stood as naked and more
colossal than his foe. Weapon of his own he had none, nor cared for
any. More primitive even than his antagonist, he sought for nothing
letter than the first weapon of primeval man, a club, which should
extend the sweep of his own arm. From the hand of the nearest Indian
he snatched a war club, not dissimilar to that which hung at White
Calf's wrist, a stone-headed beetle, grooved and bound fast with
rawhide to a long, slender, hard-wood handle, which in turn was
sheathed in a heavy rawhide covering, shrunk into a steel-like
re-enforcement. Armed alike, naked alike, savage alike, and purely
animal in the blind desire of battle, the two were at issue before a
hand could stay them. All chance of delay or separation was gone.
Both white and red men fell back and made arena for a unique and awful
combat.
There was a moment of measuring, that grim advance balance struck when
two strong men meet for a struggle which for either may end alone in
death. The Indian was magnificent in mien, superb in confidence. Fear
was not in him. His vast figure, nourished on sweet meat of the
plains, fed by pure air and developed by continual exercise, showed
like the torso of a minor Hercules, powerful but not sluggish in its
power. His broad and deep chest, here and there spotted with white
scars, arched widely for the vital organs, but showed no clogging fat.
His legs were corded and thin. His arms were also slender, but showing
full of easy-playing muscles with power of rapid and unhampered
strength. Two or three inches above the six-feet mark he stood as he
cast off his war bonnet and swept back a hand over the standing eagle
plumes, whipped fast to his braided hair. White Calf was himself a
giant.
Yet huge and menacing as he stood, the figure opposed to him was still
more formidable. Juan, the _mozo_ overtopped him by nearly half a
head, and was as broad or broader in the shoulder. His body, a dull
brown in colour, showed smoother than that of his enemy, the muscles
not having been brought out by unremitted exercise. Yet under that
bulk of flesh there lay no man might tell how much of awful vigour.
The loop of the war club would not slip over his great hand. He caught
it in his fingers and made the weapon hum about his head, as some
forgotten ancestor of his, tall Navajo, or forgotten cave dweller, may
have done before the Spaniard came. The weapon seemed to him like a
toy, and he cast his eye about for another more commensurate with his
strength, but, seeing none, forgot the want, and in the sheer ignorance
of fear which made his bravery, began the fight as though altogether
careless of its end.
White Calf was before his people, whose chief he was by reason of his
personal prowess, and with all the vanity of his kind he exulted in
this opportunity of displaying his fitness for his place. Yet in him
natural bravery had a qualifying caution, which was here obviously well
justified. The Mexican made direct assault, rushing on with battle axe
poised as though to end it all with one immediate blow. With guard and
parry he was more careless than the wild bull of the Plains, which
meets his foe in direct impetuous assault. White Calf was not so rash.
He stepped quickly back from the attack, and as the _mozo_ plunged
forward from the impulse of his unchecked blow, the Indian swept
sternly at him with the full force of his extended arm. The caution of
the chief, and the luck of a little thing, each in turn prevented the
ending of the combat at its outset. Half falling onward, the Mexican
slipped upon a tuft of the hard gray grass and went down headlong. A
murmur arose from the Indians, who thought at first that their leader's
blow had proved fatal. A sharp call from Curly seemed to bring the
Mexican to his feet at once. The Indian lost the half moment which was
his own. Again the two engaged, White Calf now seeking to disconcert
the Mexican, whom he discovered to be less agile than himself. Darting
in and out, jumping rapidly from side to side, and uttering the while
the sharp staccato of his war call, he passed about the Mexican, half
circling and returning, his eye fixed straight upon the other's, and
his war club again and again hurtling dangerously close to his
opponents head. One shade more of courage, one touch more of the
daring necessary to carry him a single foot closer in, and the victory
had been with him, for no human skull could have withstood the impact
of a pound of flint impelled by an arm so powerful.
Juan the _mozo_ stood almost motionless, his own club half raised, the
great muscles of his arm now showing under the brown skin as he
clinched hard the tiny stem of the weapon. He seemed not perturbed by
the menaces of the chieftain, and though unaware that the latter must
in time suffer from the violence of his own exertions, nevertheless
remained the fuller master of his own forces by simply waiting in this
one position. His readiness for offence was the one defence that he
offered. His brute courage had no mental side. The whistling of this
threatening weapon was unheeded, since it did not hurt him. He glared
in fury at the Indian, but always his arm remained half raised, his
foot, but shifted, side stepping and turning only enough to keep him
with front toward his antagonist. The desperate, eager waiting of his
attitude was awful. The whisper of the wings of death was on the air
about this place. The faces of the white men witnessing the spectacle
were drawn and haggard. A gulp, a sigh, a half groan now and again
came from their parted lips.
White Calf pursued his rapid tactics for some moments, and a dozen
times sped a blow which still fell short. He gained confidence, and
edged closer in. He feinted and sprang from side to side, but gained
little ground. His people saw his purpose, and murmurs of approval
urged him on. It seemed that in a moment he must land the fatal blow
upon his apparently half-stupefied opponent. He sought finally to
deliver this blow, but the effort was near to proving his ruin. Just
as he swung forward, the giant, with a sudden contraction of all his
vast frame, sprang out and brought down his war axe in a sheer downward
blow at half-arm's length. White Calf with lightning speed changed his
own attack into defence, sweeping up his weapon to defend his head. On
the instant his arm was beaten down. It fell helpless at his side, the
axe only hanging to his hand by means of the loop passed around the
wrist. A spasm of pain crossed his face at the racking agony in the
nerves of his arm, yet he retained energy enough to spring back, and
still he stood erect. A cry of dismay burst from the followers of the
red champion and a keen yell from the whites, unable to suppress their
exultation, Yet at the next moment the partisans of either had become
silent; for, though the Indian seemed disabled, the _mozo_ stood before
him weaponless. The tough, slender rod which made the handle of his
war axe had snapped like a pipestem under the force of his blow, and
even the rawhide covering was torn loose from the head of stone, which
lay, with a foot of the broken hard-wood staff still attached, upon the
ground between the two antagonists.
Juan cast away the bit of rod still in his hand and rushed forward
against his enemy, seeking to throttle him with his naked fingers.
White Calf, quicker-witted of the two, slung the thong of his war club
free from his crippled right hand, and, grasping the weapon in his
left, still made play with it about his head. The giant none the less
rushed in, receiving upon his shoulder a blow from the left hand of the
Indian which cut the flesh clean to the collar bone, in a great bruised
wound which was covered at once with a spurt of blood. The next
instant the two fell together, the Indian beneath his mighty foe, and
the two writhing in a horrible embrace. The hands of the _mozo_
gripped the Indian's throat, and he uttered a rasping, savage roar of
triumph, more beastlike than human, as he settled hard upon the chest
of the enemy whose life he was choking out. Again rose the savage
cries of the on-lookers.
Not even yet had the end come. There was a heaving struggle, a sharp
cry, and Juan sprang back, pressing his hand against his side, where
blood came from between his fingers. The Indian had worked his left
hand to the sheath of his knife, and stabbed the giant who had so
nearly overcome him. Staggering, the two again stood erect, and yet
again came the cries from the many red men and the little band of
whites who were witnessing this barbarous and brutal struggle. Bows
were bending among the blankets, but the four rifles now pointed
steadily out. One movement would have meant death to many, but that
movement was fore-stalled in the still more rapid happenings of the
unfinished combat. For one-half second the two fighting men stood
apart, the one stunned at his unexpected wound, the other startled that
the wound had not proved fatal. Seeing his antagonist still on his
feet. White Calf for the first time lost courage. With the knife
still held in his left hand, he hesitated whether to join again in the
encounter, or himself to guard against the attack of a foe so proof to
injury. He half turned and gave back for a pace.
The man pursued by a foe looks about him quickly for that weapon
nearest to his own hand. The dread of steel drove Juan to bethink
himself of a weapon. He saw it at his feet, and again he roared like
an angry bull, his courage and his purpose alike unchanged. He stooped
and clutched the broken war axe, grasping the stone head in the palm of
his great hand, the jagged and ironlike shaft projecting from between
his ringers like the blade of a dagger. With the leap of a wild beast
he sprang again upon his foe. White Calf half turned, but the left
hand of the giant caught him and held him up against the fatal stroke.
The sharp shaft of wood struck the Indian in the side above the hip,
quartering through till the stone head sunk against the flesh with a
fearful sound. With a scream the victim straightened and fell forward.
The horrid spectacle was over.