In every case he made the same suggestion—that the whole lodge be moved away from the camp, and a city of the sick segregated, having no communion with the rest of the camp.
His advice was received with open anger.
“You,” said one strong warrior whose son was stricken, “have power in such matters as these. Heammawihio gave you that power and sent you down here to take care of the Cheyennes. Now, why don’t you do something to help us? You are only giving us words. You are not doing anything or making any medicine to drive away the evil spirits!”
Torridon went back to his lodge sick at heart. He had the feeling that even a skillful doctor would have had his hands more than full in such a case as this, and he was sure that calamity was soon to fall upon him.
IX
When he had changed from the polluted clothing and washed his body clean, he dressed, and went to the entrance of his lodge. Young Willow came to hold back the flap that he might enter.
“Don’t come near me,” he told her. “If you so much as touch me, you may die of it. I have been near evil spirits.”
“You have washed yourself clean,” said the squaw.
“It may be even in my breath,” Torridon said bitterly.
“Come,” said Young Willow stoutly. “I am not afraid. I have never been a man to take scalps, but I never have been afraid to do my duty. Come in. I have some fresh venison stewing in the pot. You may smell it now. Rushing Wind gave us that for a present.”
Nancy came in haste, calling softly to him, but he warned her back sharply.
He sat outside the lodge, and ate some meat from a bowl that was placed at his direction near the entrance. A robe was also passed to him. Wrapped in that, he sat back against the wall of the teepee. Nancy crouched anxiously inside.
It was the quiet of evening. The hunters all had returned. Man and boy and dog had eaten and now rested. Later on, the yearning young lovers would wander out with their musical instruments and make strange noises and singing to their loved ones. But now they were quiet, and the dogs that would begin snarling and howling were now hushed, also.
Dun-colored or gleaming white, like pyramids of snow, the teepees stood shadowy or bright around him. From the open entrances, soft voices spoke. Firelight wavered out upon the night through the mouths of the lodges, or in red needles darting through small punctures in the cowhides. The morrow night would not be like this, Torridon could well guess. There would be wailings and weepings for the dead.
He looked above him. The stars were out, unblemished and clear. He felt a strange connection with them, so much had the wild tales of the Cheyennes about him entered his mind, and a sense of doom came over Torridon.
“Nancy,” he said.
“Yes,” she murmured. “Are you going to stay there the whole night?”
“I don’t dare to breathe the same air that you may breathe after me.”
“Paul, Paul,” cried the girl softly, “if anything happens to you, do you think that I want to live on after you? And in such a place?”
“I’ve thought it out,” he said. “As long as I’m here, they don’t care for your comings and goings. You can do what you please. And this is what you must do. Will you listen?”
“Yes.”
“Will you do what I tell you to do?”
“I’ll try my best.”
“Go out and take the pinto horse. He’s tethered behind the lodge. Young Willow has gone to High Wolf. You’re free to load the pinto with food and robes and never be suspected. Then lead him out of the village and down toward the river. Mount him and ride across. Keep on steadily to the north. Ride due north and never stop. Keep your horse jogging or walking. You’ll cover more miles that way without killing your pony. When the morning comes you’ll find Roger Lincoln. He’s waiting there to the north for us.”
“He’s waiting for you, Paul. Not for us.”
“You’ve given your promise to do what I tell you.”
“Do you think I could go?” she asked.
“You must. There’s no escape for the two of us. I see that now. But there is an escape for you. Find Roger Lincoln, and tell him to go back to the fort. Once you’re away . . . I’ll find some means of escaping . . . after the sickness is ended and gone.”
“But you’ll never escape,” Nancy sobbed. “You’ll be visiting the lodges of the sick and you’ll be sure to catch it. Then who will take care of you?”
“Such things are chance,” said Torridon calmly. “A man has to face some dangers. This isn’t a great one. I don’t touch these poor invalids. I don’t come near their breath.”
“Ah, but I know their lodges will be reeking. Six sick people, perhaps, in one teepee.”
“Nancy, we’re talking about you. Will you go?”
She answered him with an equal calm: “Do you think that I love you as other women love? I mean, women who can live apart from their husbands? I’m not that way. I’d never leave you unless I were dragged away.”
After that, he was silent for a time, trying to find some argument to persuade her.
“You can do nothing for me here,” he said. “And you have a father and a mother to return to.”
She answered bitterly: “I have no father and no mother. They drove me away from you. Following me, you came to the Cheyennes. Except for my father and mother, we would not be here now, Paul. We would be happy in a home of our own.”
“If they did wrong,” said Torridon, looking as he spoke into the very heart of things, “they did it for your sake. You must not blame them too much. Besides, our lives have some meaning. Is it right to throw them away?”
Nancy strove to answer; the words were lost and stilled in faint sobs, and Torridon knew that it was useless to talk to her any longer on this subject. She would not leave him. And for the first time in his young life true humility flowed into the heart of the boy, and he wondered at her goodness, and the pure, strong soul of Nancy. He wondered if it had not been planned that all this should happen so that he should find the truth about life and about himself.
A haze drew gradually over the eyes of Torridon. The stars floated in a dim mist of thin, golden sparks. He slept.
When he wakened, the cold dew was in his hair and on his face. And from the distance, at the verge of the Cheyenne camp, he heard strange, high-pitched cries. For a moment they were a blended part and portion of his dream, then, wakening fully, he knew them for what they were—the dirges of lament.
And he could see with the mind’s eye the poor squaws disfiguring themselves for warrior husbands, or helpless child, now dead and still.
He prepared himself for the grimmest and saddest day of his life, but all his mental preparations were less than the reality.
Like a dreadful fire the pestilence was sweeping through the Cheyenne camp. In the morning, a warrior and two children lay dead, and thirty more were sick. But by noon the sick numbered more than fifty, and they were scattered through all parts of the camp.
The medicine men, frantically rushing here and there, were working in a frenzy to cast out the wicked spirits. But they themselves soon paid for their rashness. Four of them were stretched helplessly by noon in the heat of the day, two of them howling with appeals to the spirits and with pain.
And Torridon went everywhere, grimly, from lodge to lodge. Men and women looked at him with stony eyes, heard his advice with glares, and in silence let him retire. And it began to appear to Torridon that this calamity was blamed upon him as a thing done to the whole nation out of personal malice.
He could have smiled at such childishness, but behind the sullen silence of those red men there was all the danger of drawn knives and leveled rifles. Before noon came, he knew that death was not far from him, if he had to remain in the camp.