“He does not have a medicine,” answered another. “He is medicine himself. He is not a mere man. He is neither white nor red.”
Torridon, facing that freshening wind, could not help remembering what he had heard over and over again during the past ten days: that the rain wind was the south wind. He looked with a sudden and frantic hope toward the horizon, but his heart fell again when he saw that all was burnished clear and clean.
He went back to the lodge of Standing Bull and there he made up his pack as it had been when he arrived. Other possessions were shifted about with perfect disregard of ownership, in many cases, but his things had been left alone with an almost superstitious regard. He took his rifle and cleaned and loaded it afresh. He saw to his two double-barreled pistols—the real pride of his life—and so he made himself ready to depart.
All this was done in the midst of a great bustling that spread through the entire camp, and finally Standing Bull called to him from without that the horses were ready.
He stepped through the flap of the tent. The silver beauty and the black were there—Comanche, the mare, looking wild-eyed from her long course of freedom in the open fields, and the stallion ten times more so. But they came like dogs to a master.
A little crowd gathered—the children pressing close, the braves remaining at a more dignified distance—but all eaten with curiosity to see the manner in which the man from the sky would handle these horses from the sky. Apparently they saw enough to stir them. Murmurs of delight and wonder rose from them. Their own animals were not trained to be pets, but to be efficient tools in time of need. Caresses were not lavished on them, and the vast majority were merely wild horses that had been caught, knowing no master except sheer force.
When he took the lead rope from the neck of the silver mare, they spread out their arms to keep her from bolting away, and there were murmurs of wonder when Torridon merely turned his back on her. That murmur grew into pleasant laughter when big Ashur actually strode after his master into the tent. So Torridon carried out all his possessions.
Standing Bull bit his lip as he watched. “Do the Sky People need to see all these things?” he asked.
“They see small and they see big,” said Torridon. “Shall I have them say to one another . . . ‘That is not White Thunder, but only a man who has stolen his horses?’”
To this, Standing Bull made no rejoinder, but his brow remained dark with suspicion. And he prominently added his finest rifle to his equipment as he stood beside the best of his own horses.
The saddling was done with much care by Torridon. He saw to it that the cinches were well secured, and that the packs were strapped on stoutly. Owl Woman helped, as in duty bound, in all this work. At last the bridles were on. The mare was secured to the stallion’s saddle by a lead rope, and then Torridon spoke. At once Ashur dropped upon one knee, almost like a human being making a curtsy, and Torridon stepped easily into the saddle, while the little boys and girls cried out in delight to one another.
Another word and Ashur rose. In his joy he rose sheer up on his hind legs, dropped lightly forward, and leaped high into the air. But Torridon knew these maneuvers. They looked wild and frantic enough to a bystander. As a matter of fact every leap and check was executed with a cat-like softness and grace. It was a sort of system of play, long established between them. Not a morning passed that did not see such gamboling. The silver mare neighed and shook her head, but followed cheerfully beside them, for she understood, also, that it was play.
But the Indians looked on with alarm and wonder. “Aha!” they cried in the hearing of Torridon. “Look! There is a man who can ride a horse. Look at that, my friend!”
“Yes, but that horse has no feet. He has wings, only we cannot see them.”
Whatever their admiration, they did not allow Torridon to proceed unescorted. High Wolf, properly enough, had given charge of the guard of honor to big Standing Bull, and that warrior took harsh command of the selected men. He had picked a score of the best mounted, most savage warriors of the tribe, and these closed in around Torridon, behind, before, and to either side, as he issued from the camp.
Behind them came a group of medicine men, hideously masked as bears, wolves, devils, fantastically draped, carrying noisy rattles. Behind these, in turn, High Wolf rode alone, and after him the rest of the tribe, following no order whatever, men, women, and children, confusedly together, rushed from the village and spread themselves out over the flat.
Well out in the open, Standing Bull led the way to a small plateau, circumscribed by a narrow and steep-sided ravine, or draw. The ground that it enclosed was almost like an island. Here Standing Bull directed that the ceremony should take place. Torridon groaned inwardly. With the throat of this high island choked with men, the only escape would be to leap a horse across the mouth of the ravine, and that was a spring of such dimension that even Ashur well might fail in the effort.
“Now, White Thunder,” said Standing Bull, “we see that you already have called the wind from the right corner of the sky. We know that you can make that wind carry thousands of clouds over us if you speak to the Sky People. Then speak to them, and tell them to have pity on the Cheyennes.”
“Keep back from me,” said Torridon. “All keep far back from me. Have your guns ready,” he added after a moment. “Let every rifle and pistol be charged.”
Standing Bull looked curiously at him. It was not the sort of request that he had expected. But he repeated the order, and the few warriors who had not already loaded their weapons immediately obeyed the suggestion.
They drew back to the verge of the little plateau. Torridon was left in the center, surrounded by potential enemies, and feeling half desperate and half foolish, like one who is a charlatan against his will. However, something had to be done. He looked anxiously toward the south, for he had hoped that perhaps this favorable wind might bring up clouds enough to cause some slight excitement. However, there was not so much as a shadow along the southern horizon. Not a trace of vapor was floating in all the wide, hot face of the sky. Torridon sighed.
In the meantime, all those hungrily expectant eyes were fixed upon him. He must do something, if only to kill time. He made the stallion kneel, and, scooping up a handful of dust, he raised his hand high, and released the dust in a long, thin streamer down the wind.
The voice of a medicine man shouted in the distance: “See it and look down, oh, Sky People!”
Torridon raised the other arm and for a long time stared at the pale, empty vault of the heavens above him.
“Oh, God,” said Torridon in a trembling voice, and in English, “if there is a God, help me. I don’t know what to do.”
A mighty hush had dropped upon the assembly. Their eyes were riveted with tremendous concentration upon him. In the distance he could see women holding up their frightened children on high that they might have a better view. A child screamed. The cry was stifled in its midst.
Then, glancing gloomily to the south, Torridon thought he saw a thickening of the horizon line. His heart bounded into his throat. There was no doubt. The dark line grew yet broader. It began to bulge upward in the center.
“Sky People!” cried Torridon in the Cheyenne tongue, “I command you to send the rain clouds and the rain! Instantly send them!”
At the boldness of this talk a soft groan of fear rose from the warriors and then from the masses of people beyond. Torridon shouted: “Fire! Let every gun be fired straight into the air. Standing Bull, repeat the order!”