Red Hawk knew that he was about to die. He was enmeshed in such a net that he could not possibly escape from the coils, and, even if escape were possible, it seemed to him that there was no worth in existence. As he walked slowly down a byway of the town of Witherell, it was merely the means of a quick release from this living misery that he thought about.
Far away, he heard the voice of Richard Lester, high-pitched, repeating his name in a piercing call. Well he knew that that man had enough kindness in him to regret that even the White Indian had been involuntarily deceived, but there was nothing in the power of words to relieve Red Hawk’s mind. He was caught between two irresistible hands and crushed.
The lane he followed brought him to the side of the central square, so that he could now hear the tumult in the saloons. Each throat opened its outcry on a separate note, as the swinging doors at the entrance vibrated to and fro. Inside, he could see men in skin caps, in felt hats, in sombreros—men in woven cloth or deerskins, who went around the square locked arm in arm, staggering, dead drunk. Now two groups stuck together, and instantly the men had fallen to the ground in couples, wrestling, cursing. Then knives began to flicker.
Spectators poured out from the saloons and stood about, making no attempt to intervene. They cheered on the combatants, as though it had been dogs that struggled on the ground.
Then there was a scream, a long, high-drawn death note that might have been from either a man or a woman, because there was nothing but the last agony in it. And the grinding of the knife against bone and through tender flesh as it found the life.
Red Hawk struck his hands against his ears, but could not shut out the last of that yell. He turned back across an open field, walking with no strength in his knees, and repeating in his mind that he was caught between two hands and crushed. Among the Indians he could be what? A man of some dignity and importance, perhaps, because he had caught White Horse. But no matter what his deeds might be, the old shame of his failure in the medicine lodge would cling to him, and the medicine men and certain of the older warriors would always feel that the mere sight of him was a bane and a frightful example for the rising youth of the Cheyennes.
But if he were not to live among the Cheyennes, how could he exist with the whites of Witherell? If he could endure their brutality, he still could not withstand their mocking laughter.
He looked up, and the white faces of the stars struck a mortal cold through his soul; he looked down, and the darkness rose out of the ground and covered his mind. So, with White Horse following him, he found himself at the verge of a small hollow through which a rivulet twisted, and by the edge of the running water there was a shack no larger than the lodge of an Indian, with one dim light shining through the window.
At first the place dawned on his brain like a dream that is being repeated with a familiar expectancy of something to come. It was only after a long moment that he remembered that this was the house of Marshall Sabin, who the Cheyennes called Wind Walker. The instant he realized that, he felt that he understood why his feet had been led to the place. The thing was clear in his mind now. When a man is caught in a trap, it is best to keep fighting to the last, and so win a quick death. What death could be quicker and surer than for him to stand alone in front of Wind Walker, who had faced the chosen Cheyenne warriors three and four at a time and had left dead men behind him?
As for the chance of reward, if fortune were willing to favor him, and lay the Wind Walker dead at his feet, then, indeed, he would he able to return to the tribe with all the omissions of his past forgiven and forgotten. He would become the hero of the nation. Running Elk would have to regard his medicine with awe, and Dull Hatchet would be forced to admit him to the council.
He whispered a farewell to White Horse, when he was close to the house, and took his last look at the stallion, more by touch of hand than by eye. Then he went on to the window. When he came close to it, he could understand why the light had streamed from it with such a dull ray, because the window was simply an oiled tissue and not glass at all. It was impossible for him to spy on the man inside without breaking the membrane, and that sound would, of course, be ample warning to Wind Walker, even if his favoring spirits had not already told him that an enemy was near.
Red Hawk went to the door, tried the latch with a soft hand, and flung the door suddenly wide open. He saw Wind Walker rise from a small table in the middle of the room, where he had been reading a book. With one hand the white man gripped the lamp, as if ready to dash it to the ground and give himself the protection of darkness. With the other hand he leveled a revolver at the door.
“Wind Walker!” called Red Hawk, using the Indian name, but speaking in English. “Do you hear me? I am Red Hawk. I have come to fight with you, and to see which of us is to die and which of us has the stronger medicine. I come with no gun . . . with only a knife. Are you ready to face me?”
Sabin, when he heard his name called out, at first lifted the lamp higher to throw more light on the threshold. Now he stepped back, letting his revolver fall down the length of his arm.
“Well,” said Sabin, “come in peace, Red Hawk. No matter how you may happen to leave. Show yourself.”
It was true that, if he entered the room, the white man might tilt up the muzzle of his revolver and make an end of one more Cheyenne, but Red Hawk did not hesitate. Great men of war were apt to fight fairly, and at any rate Wind Walker was so certain to conquer that he would hardly take an advantage, for that would give the kill no savor to him. For these reasons, Red Hawk stepped fearlessly upon the threshold and then into the room. He held the knife in his hand and now he cast it, in an access of desperate confidence, upon the floor.
“There is my knife,” he said, “and here am I.”
He saw the muzzle of the revolver tilt upward a little, as if an involuntary twitch of the muscles had stirred it. Then it hung down idly again, and presently Wind Walker put the gun back on the table beside the book that he had been reading. All this while he was taking hold of Red Hawk with his eyes, and Red Hawk, in turn, had a chance to glance about the room.
It was as simple a place as could be built with logs by two men in a pair of days. Mud had been used to stop, or partially stop, the gaps between the roughly faced logs, and the trimming had been done so carelessly that here and there the stub of a branch projected. There were even a few dead, brown leaves curled close on a few of the twigs. For furnishings there was a bunk built against the wall, with a few blankets tossed carelessly on top of it, and no sign of even a pallet of straw. The floor was beaten earth merely.
Some clothes hung from pegs. A rifle, with a powder horn hung to it, leaned in a corner beside a saddle that was suspended by one stirrup. Until one faced the fireplace, that was all that was to be seen, except for a small box or trunk piled with books.
But the fireplace itself was what took the major part of Red Hawk’s attention. Not with its size or the three small pots that stood beside its crane, but because from a rawhide thong across the front of the hearth, as high as a man’s head, there hung more than a score—yes, or even thirty—long black tresses of hair, with what seemed decaying rags of cloth attached to the bottoms of them. Whenever Wind Walker laid wood on his fire, whenever he bowed over the hearth to arrange the pots, he passed under the line of Cheyenne scalps.
Such trophies Red Hawk had seen by scores in the camp of the Cheyennes, and yet this sight sickened him, and not alone with grief for the losses of his own people.
He had noted these things with one swing of his eyes around the room, and he could give all of his heed now to the huge man who faced him. It seemed to him that he had never seen Wind Walker before, neither in the street of Witherell nor in the blacksmith shop of Sam Calkins. He seemed larger than ever, although he was stooped a little forward, in an attitude of readiness. His hair was not gray, but half white and half black, in streaks. In a sense, he seemed older, but his face was as timeless as a rock. Years could not take the strength from his great hands.
He was saying: “You’re the renegade white that can’t live with your own kind. You prefer the dog-eating Cheyennes.”
Red Hawk responded simply: “Is it for that reason that you hate my tribe, Wind Walker? Well, a fat dog makes a very good feast in the middle of winter, some men say. But I have never tasted the flesh. We have been through no great hungers during the time of my life.”
“Dog eaters or rat eaters, you’re all of a kind,” said Wind Walker harshly. “But how does it happen that one of the gang is willing to step out in the open and fight like a man? Can you tell me that?”
“There are many braves among the Cheyennes,” said Red Hawk, “who are not afraid to meet you.”
“You lie,” said Wind Walker. “They run away from me like antelope.”
Red Hawk threw up his head and flushed. “Why do you say the thing that is not true?” he demanded. “Here you see me, who never won a man’s name among the Cheyennes . . . and yet, even without a name, I am not afraid to face you, Wind Walker.”
“You lie again,” said Sabin. “You’re gray as a bone, in spite of the tan you wear. You’re white about the mouth with fear.”
Red Hawk sighed. “It is true that my heart is cold,” he said. “But nevertheless I am here.”
“You can’t lift my hair, Red Hawk,” said Sabin easily. “It’s not in the books that you can handle me. You’ll win no great name from me, my lad. You’ll get no more than a little inheritance of cold earth to stop your mouth and eyes for the rest of time. But, by the eternal God, I’ve half a mind to let you go. I hunt the red Cheyennes for the sake of a woman who they murdered, boy. There’s nothing in me against a poor, deluded fool of a white lad that they’ve raised according to their lights.”
“I know your squaw,” said Red Hawk.
“You know her? You were hardly born when she died.”
“She has spoken a word to me out of the ground nevertheless,” said Red Hawk.
White Horse neighed anxiously outside the door, and then thrust his magnificent head through the opening and looked after his master.
“Do you see?” said Red Hawk. “I sacrificed a good horse to her ghost, and her spirit gave me fortune so that I caught White Horse.”
“So it was you who laid that offal on her grave?” exclaimed Wind Walker, his voice rising to a thunder. He took a deep breath, suddenly, and controlled himself. “Now, my lad,” he said, “I think I understand you. You’ve come here to have it out with me, and so be able to ride back in a glory with White Horse and my scalp. But you can’t win. I’m not fool enough to fight with knives against a young wildcat . . . and you’d be a fool to fight me with guns, because I’ve lived with nothing but guns for twenty years. Do you hear me? Walk out the door, then, Red Hawk, and thank your spirits for the life that hasn’t leaked out through a hole in your skin. Be off with you, lad.”
“Give me the small gun and take the rifle for yourself. We shall fight like that,” said Red Hawk.
“D’you like the rifle better?” asked Wind Walker. “Take it, then.”
The stallion whinnied as Red Hawk, without waiting for a second invitation, hurried to the wall and caught up the rifle.
Sabin at the same time picked the revolver from the table. He said: “Keep that rifle no lower than at the ready. If you begin to drop the muzzle at me till we’ve had a signal, I’ll split your skull wide open between your blue eyes, Red Hawk. But I’ll give you a last chance. I tell you now that at a range like this, I can’t miss you. If we fight, you’re dead. Lad, get out of the house and go back to the tribe. There are still enough red Cheyennes left for me.”
“I have prayed to the Listeners Above and the Underground Listeners,” said Red Hawk. “If they give me a victory, it is very well . . . but, if I die, I am only leaving a dark life.”
“Damn the Listeners Above and Underground, when I have a loaded gun in my hand,” said Marshall Sabin. “There’s your horse, flickering his nostrils and ready to whinny again. There’s the signal for us to fire, when he neighs. And God help your rotten young soul.”
They faced one another in silence, the rifle at the ready, the revolver hanging straight down in Sabin’s hand. It seemed to Red Hawk that Wind Walker was leaning a little farther forward, peering as though he saw in the face of Red Hawk a familiar landscape.
Then Red Hawk felt, rather than heard, the vibrating neigh of the stallion, and he jerked up the butt of the rifle to fire. He saw the revolver flash to a level, the muzzle of it tipped up as it spat fire, and the red streak of the flame seemed to explode through his whole brain, followed by darkness.
He found himself falling. The floor rushed up against his eyes and struck his entire body, heavily. And as he lay still, he wondered that he was not dead. It was as though the blow of a club and the stroke of a knife had fallen upon his head at the same instant. The keen pain burned into the bone of his skull and fought against the darkness that had swooped down on his brain.
Wind Walker was coming. He had to rise and face death. He had to bring life back into his limbs for a final struggle. He saw the great moccasins striding toward him. He could see the powerful legs as high as the bulge of the calves. He saw the spread of the toes inside the thin leather that covered them. And suddenly it came to him that the gods of the white man must love this warrior; they had entrusted victory in his hands.
The big feet paused near him. He knew that the monster was bending above him. Red Hawk gathered himself through a tenth part of a second for the final effort. Then he thrust himself up with his left hand. His right caught up the gleaming length of his knife, and he drove it right at the breast of Wind Walker.
He had one glimpse of hope. Then, with a side-sweep of his revolver, Wind Walker struck the knife out of Red Hawk’s grasp. It hurtled far away, and clanged against the wall. It fell back with a shiver of steel against the floor.
Still the final bullet did not crunch through Red Hawk’s body and bones. He got to his feet, swaying. Death was right there before him, a glimmering light on the barrel of the revolver. It would strike him in the belly through the tender flesh. He could see that from one eye; the other was blinded with the blood that flowed from the wound in his scalp. He folded his arms and stood fast, as a helpless man should do, facing death with dignity. He hoped that when the gun crashed, he would not fall writhing on the floor. He prayed that no screams of agony would tear through his locked teeth.
“You sneaking Cheyenne snake!” shouted Wind Walker, and stepped in with all his weight behind a driving fist. The blow caught Red Hawk well on the side of the chin, and hurled him sidelong into a second darkness.