Red Men and White. Owen Wister
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assembled in the mountains and descended; their shadow flooded the valley with a lake of slatish blue, and presently the sudden torrents sluiced down with flashes and the ample thunder of Montana. Thus not alone the law against our soldiers firing the first shot in an Indian excitement, but now also the elements coincided to help the medicine-man’s destiny.
Cheschapah sat in a tepee with his father, and as the rain splashed heavily on the earth the old man gazed at the young one.
“Why do you tremble, my son? You have made the white soldier’s heart soft,” said Pounded Meat. “You are indeed a great man, my son.”
Cheschapah rose. “Do not call me your son,” said he. “That is a lie.” He went out into the fury of the rain, lifting his face against the drops, and exultingly calling out at each glare of the lightning. He went to Pretty Eagle’s young squaw, who held off from him no longer, but got on a horse, and the two rode into the mountains. Before the sun had set, the sky was again utterly blue, and a cool scent rose everywhere in the shining valley.
The Crows came out of their tepees, and there were the white soldiers obeying orders and going away. They watched the column slowly move across the flat land below the bluffs, where the road led down the river twelve miles to the post.
“They are afraid,” said new converts. “Cheschapah’s rain has made their hearts soft.”
“They have not all gone,” said Pretty Eagle. “Maybe he did not make enough rain.” But even Pretty Eagle began to be shaken, and he heard several of his brother chiefs during the next few days openly declare for the medicine-man. Cheschapah with his woman came from the mountains, and Pretty Eagle did not dare to harm him. Then another coincidence followed that was certainly most reassuring to the war party. Some of them had no meat, and told Cheschapah they were hungry. With consummate audacity he informed them he would give them plenty at once. On the same day another timely electric storm occurred up the river, and six steers were struck by lightning.
When the officers at Fort Custer heard of this they became serious.
“If this was not the nineteenth century,” said Haines, “I should begin to think the elements were deliberately against us.”
“It’s very careless of the weather,” said Stirling. “Very inconsiderate, at such a juncture.”
Yet nothing more dangerous than red-tape happened for a while. There was an expensive quantity of investigation from Washington, and this gave the hostiles time to increase both in faith and numbers.
Among the excited Crows only a few wise old men held out. As for Cheschapah himself, ambition and success had brought him to the weird enthusiasm of a fanatic. He was still a charlatan, but a charlatan who believed utterly in his star. He moved among his people with growing mystery, and his hapless adjutant, Two Whistles, rode with him, slaved for him, abandoned the plans he had for making himself a farm, and, desiring peace in his heart, weakly cast his lot with war. Then one day there came an order from the agent to all the Indians: they were to come in by a certain fixed day. The department commander had assembled six hundred troops at the post, and these moved up the river and went into camp. The usually empty ridges, and the bottom where the road ran, filled with white and red men. Half a mile to the north of the buildings, on the first rise from the river, lay the cavalry, and some infantry above them with a howitzer, while across the level, three hundred yards opposite, along the river-bank, was the main Indian camp. Even the hostiles had obeyed the agent’s order, and came in close to the troops, totally unlike hostiles in general; for Cheschapah had told them he would protect them with his medicine, and they shouted and sang all through this last night. The women joined with harsh cries and shriekings, and a scalp-dance went on, besides lesser commotions and gatherings, with the throbbing of drums everywhere. Through the sleepless din ran the barking of a hundred dogs, that herded and hurried in crowds of twenty at a time, meeting, crossing from fire to fire among the tepees. Their yelps rose to the high bench of land, summoning a horde of coyotes. These cringing nomads gathered from the desert in a tramp army, and, skulking down the bluffs, sat in their outer darkness and ceaselessly howled their long, shrill greeting to the dogs that sat in the circle of light. The general sent scouts to find the nature of the dance and hubbub, and these brought word it was peaceful; and in the morning another scout summoned the elder chiefs to a talk with the friend who had come from the Great Father at Washington to see them and find if their hearts were good.
“Our hearts are good,” said Pretty Eagle. “We do not want war. If you want Cheschapah, we will drive him out from the Crows to you.”
“There are other young chiefs with bad hearts,” said the commissioner, naming the ringleaders that were known. He made a speech, but Pretty Eagle grew sullen. “It is well,” said the commissioner; “you will not help me to make things smooth, and now I step aside and the war chief will talk.”
“If you want any other chiefs,” said Pretty Eagle, “come and take them.”
“Pretty Eagle shall have an hour and a half to think on my words,” said the general. “I have plenty of men behind me to make my words good. You must send me all those Indians who fired at the agency.”
The Crow chiefs returned to the council, which was apart from the war party’s camp; and Cheschapah walked in among them, and after him, slowly, old Pounded Meat, to learn how the conference had gone.
“You have made a long talk with the white man,” said Cheschapah. “Talk is pretty good for old men. I and the young chiefs will fight now and kill our enemies.”
“Cheschapah,” said Pounded Meat, “if your medicine is good, it may be the young chiefs will kill our enemies to-day. But there are other days to come, and after them still others; there are many, many days. My son, the years are a long road. The life of one man is not long, but enough to learn this thing truly: the white man will always return. There was a day on this river when the dead soldiers of Yellow Hair lay in hills, and the squaws of the Sioux warriors climbed among them with their knives. What do the Sioux warriors do now when they meet the white man on this river? Their hearts are on the ground, and they go home like children when the white man says, ‘You shall not visit your friends.’ My son, I thought war was good once. I have kept you from the arrows of our enemies on many trails when you were so little that my blankets were enough for both. Your mother was not here any more, and the chiefs laughed because I carried you. Oh, my son, I have seen the hearts of the Sioux broken by the white man, and I do not think war is good.”
“The talk of Pounded Meat is very good,” said Pretty Eagle. “If Cheschapah were wise like his father, this trouble would not have come to the Crows. But we could not give the white chief so many of our chiefs that he asked for to-day.”
Cheschapah laughed. “Did he ask for so many? He wanted only Cheschapah, who is not wise like Pounded Meat.”
“You would have been given to him,” said Pretty Eagle.
“Did Pretty Eagle tell the white chief that? Did he say he would give Cheschapah? How would he give me? In one hand, or two? Or would the old warrior take me to the white man’s camp on the horse his young squaw left?”
Pretty Eagle raised his rifle, and Pounded Meat, quick as a boy, seized the barrel and pointed it up among the poles of the tepee, where the quiet black fire smoke was oozing out into the air. “Have you lived so long,” said Pounded Meat to his ancient comrade, “and do this in the council?” His wrinkled head and hands shook, the sudden strength left him, and the rifle fell free.
“Let Pretty Eagle shoot,” said Cheschapah, looking at the council. He stood calm, and the seated chiefs turned their grim eyes upon him. Certainty was in his face, and doubt in theirs. “Let him send his bullet five times—ten times. Then I will go and let the white soldiers shoot at me until they all lie dead.”
“It is heavy for me,” began Pounded Meat, “that my friend should be the enemy of my son.”
“Tell that lie no more,” said Cheschapah. “You are not my father. I have made the white man blind, and I