“I’ve brought you into trouble again,” I told him sadly.
“Bah,” said Morris. “No man can live forever.”
In the meantime the twilight came, and then a great moon stood up on the eastern skyline and turned the prairies to white silver. Morris and I sat down back to back, because there was no telling when Spotted Buck would come snaking along toward us with his gun or his bow and arrows. I was beginning to get cold and stiff, and the barrel of my rifle was freezing my hand, when a commotion started on the farther side of the village.
In ten seconds every soul in the place was screeching a word that sent shudders through me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked Morris.
“Pawnees,” he explained.
“What are they?”
“They’re enemies of the Sioux. Fighting devils, too. If there were as many Pawnees as there are Sioux in the world, I suppose they’d wipe our friends out.”
“I hope they do,” I said gloomily, “if they’ll wipe out the Cheyennes at the same time.”
The village had really gone mad, it seemed to me. The boys darted out and rushed in the horses. The bucks went whooping out to make a battle line. We were left alone in a trice with the women, the youngsters, and the old men, together with two or three of the young warriors who were sick.
The fighting had started. The Sioux and the Pawnees were screeching out on the prairie, hidden from our eyes. By the sound of the guns and the diminished noise of yelling, we guessed that the fight was gradually rolling farther and farther away from us. The squaws, the children, and the old men seemed to think the same thing. They had been half frightened to death a moment before. Now they began to yell again in a new key, get out knives, and do scalp dances that turned one’s blood cold. They used us for their little game. They would come prancing straight up to us, making the most hideous faces and screaming at the top of their lungs, wave the knives in the air, and then do a foolish, hopping dance around us.
I asked Morris if we were in any danger, and he said we were, because the women, when they got excited, were ten times as frightful in action as the men. The really expert torturing was always done by them.
It was a fit ending for the sort of a day we had been passing. I was beginning to think that one of those knives would slice across my throat when there was a new babble breaking out, and this time it came from our side of the town. I could not imagine what it was all about, but Morris figured it out quickly enough.
“There’s a Napoleon among those Pawnees,” he said. “They’ve engaged the braves with part of their band, and the other part is going to eat up the village and get away with the horses.”
There was no doubt about that. The Pawnees came shrieking into the teepee town, letting off their guns and shooting their arrows at everything in sight. Like deer and vermin scared out of a forest by a fire, the old men, women, and children began to scoot away from the danger line. But there was one young buck, really too sick to stand, who refused to run. He stuck a couple of broken feathers in his scalp lock and grabbed up a bow with a quiver full of arrows. Then he stood out in plain sight and began to warm himself up for his work by doing a war dance - but his knees were so weak that he could only shuffle his feet along the ground. Only his lungs were in good working order, and the whoops he let out are still ringing in my ears. Morris knew enough Sioux to give me a free translation.
“He says that he’s Gray Buffalo, and that he has never turned his head from a Pawnee and never intends to. This is where he figures on dying. Lew, we’d better range up beside the poor cripple.”
We had to make our last stand somewhere, and, even if Gray Buffalo were small comfort, he was better than nothing. We ran out beside him. When he saw us drop on our knees and get our rifles ready, he turned stark, staring mad, and began to scream at the others. He had an effect on them, too. Some of the boys and the old men got up their nerve when they saw this example and came running to join our lost cause.
SITTING WOLF
We had a little army around us in an instant. And what an army. We had little boys of ten years with their amateur bows that shot arrows just strongly enough to stick the heads into the hide of the village cows. We had women swinging clubs. We had men too weak to bend the big war bows. We had sick young braves like that real hero, Gray Buffalo, who had organized the defense.
We were no longer outcasts. I may tell you that, in the few seconds remaining before the Pawnees broke in on us, we were given a rare welcome, because anyone could see with half an eye that Morris and I, with our rifles and revolvers, were the real strength of the defense. We were patted on the back and stroked and made much of - and then a drove of frightened horses came crashing straight toward us. The Pawnees had sent them ahead as a screen to shelter their main attack on the village, and they nearly ground to bits our staggering line of last defense. But just as they were about to sweep over us, the horses broke to either side and sloped past us, giving us an open view of the Pawnees, raging in the rear.
Have you ever seen an Indian charge by moonlight? Those who have will understand why I don’t try to describe it. There was not enough dust raised to obscure that sight. And we had a free glimpse into hell with half a hundred devils, raging through the mist. They were shooting as they came. An arrow clipped Gray Buffalo in the throat, and he went down on his face, scratching at the dirt with both hands for a second, until he died. A poor little child of ten or eleven stood up beside me and sent an arrow from his play bow. The next instant he had a shaft through his leg and went down - went down without a murmur.
By that time I had forgotten to be afraid. I was too hot for that. I barely heard Morris calclass="underline" “Now, Lew!”
Then we let them have it. They were coming in a flying wedge, and our two shots chipped off the two riders who were the point of the wedge. Our little army of cripples raised an immense din when they saw the leaders of the Pawnees drop, and they turned loose a wild volley of arrows, bullets, sticks, and stones. I could see the Pawnees swaying back on their horses, tugging at the reins. An Indian likes to see the other fellow running before he charges home. While they were swaying - the front men checking their horses and kicking up clouds of dust, and the rear trying to press through and get at our scalps - Chuck and I opened up with our revolvers.
When a man has shot squirrels out of trees, he doesn’t miss a grown man at point-blank range even when only the moon is out. We took our time. There was no hurry. The Pawnees began to drop fast enough to take the heart out of them. Besides, the moment they halted, half a hundred of the Sioux women and old men and cripples rushed them. I saw a big squaw swing a club I could hardly have managed myself and knock down a rider at one clip.
It was over in ten seconds. The Pawnees lost heart in the first five and began to struggle to get back in the next five counts. Then they bolted off into the moon mist just as a troop of our own Sioux, returning from the main battle to the rescue, came thundering through the town. They went after those Pawnees like timber wolves after coyotes. Another instant and the trouble was over. There was nothing but victory. I didn’t mind the racket that the squaws and the children put up. I felt like doing a little yelling myself.
Then I remembered the youngster who had gone down with the arrow through his leg. He had pulled himself a little to one side and had braced his back against a teepee. There he had shot one arrow after another at the Pawnees while the battle lasted. After that, he put down his bow, folded his arms, and waited for help to come - if help was coming. None of the Sioux paid the slightest attention to that little hero. They were too busy celebrating. I went over to him. He gave me a smile I shall never forget and waved me off as though he were saying: “Go join the fun. I’m quite all right.”