Bert groaned. “Now we’ll have to get all the horses corralled. It’s too near sundown for the Squeehawks to travel to Sweetwater. They’ll camp here for the night. Wait till you see!” He waved a fork in Robb’s face. “Come on, let’s eat. There’s a helluva—pardon, Miss Bly—there’s a lot to get done tonight.”
Sally decided it was time to leave and let them start eating. At the door of the cookhouse she met Jim and Jackson.
“What’s this about Miss Park?” Jim asked quietly.
“Just all that,” Sally said. “And I mustn’t keep you, Jim. Seemingly there’s a helluva lot to get done tonight.” She tried to smile. If the men hadn’t been watching her she might have burst into tears. It was the concern in all their faces and the worry in Jim’s voice that had touched her. She gave them a wave and hurried down to the house.
“See you at the corral,” Jim called after her. He stood there, watching her.
“Nice woman that,” Bert said, looking at the excellent stew in front of him. “Hope she’s as good a cook as she is pretty. Come and get it, Jim. Don’t look to me as if we’ll be poisoned, after all.”
* * *
“But what are we to do?” Prender Atherton Jones asked at the end of the quickly served, quickly eaten dinner.
“Find her,” Sally said. “Look, Prender, the cowboys are all going out to search for her. Are we going to let them do our work for us?”
Everyone looked angrily at Prender Atherton Jones. They were now all having the first pangs of conscience about the casual way they had talked of Esther Park all day.
“Sally, you shouldn’t ride far,” Mrs. Peel said. “And I don’t think Mimi should be out in the night air either. And as for Karl—why, it’s madness for him to ride with that arm.”
“Don’t worry,” Karl said, “I’m not falling off a horse again.”
“But in the darkness you could strike your arm against a branch of a tree.” Mrs. Peel began thinking of blood-poisoning and all kinds of complications.
“We’ll see,” Sally said appeasingly, and exchanged looks with Mimi and Karl. “Now let’s get warm clothes. See you at the corral in two minutes.”
They all arrived at the corral in less than four minutes, which proved that everyone, even Prender Atherton Jones, had begun really to worry.
“At least, the weather is good,” Carla said miserably, and looked over the fields, clear and golden in the rays of the evening sun.
“There’s Ned and Robb, and there’s Bert,” Earl Grubbock said, as he pointed to three horsemen spreading up towards the canyons. “They began early.”
“They certainly did,” Karl Koffing said, looking with surprise at all the horses—except those that were saddled and hitched to the rail—now clustered together inside the corral. “What’s the idea?”
“Thought they looked kind of cosy in here,” Chuck answered. He was leaning on the hitching-rail, and he exchanged that peculiar smile-that-wasn’t-a-smile with Jim. Jim Brent was mounted, waiting for all the guests to gather.
Then Karl noticed that his horse wasn’t among those saddled. Neither was Mimi’s. Nor Sally’s.
“Look, Jim,” he began angrily, but Jim Brent just shook his head.
“None of you are fit to ride,” Jim Brent said quietly.
“But, Jim,” Mimi said indignantly, “I—”
“Will you all stop talking and get moving?” the quiet voice went on. “Karl, we need a man at the corral, just to keep Chuck company. Sally, you can help there too. Mimi, you get back to the house and help Ma Gunn get everything ready for our return.”
No one contradicted him this time.
“Now,” Jim said, “Jones will ride with Carla as far as Ironstone Ridge, and no farther. Mrs. Peel with O’Farlan as far as Blue Hill, and no farther. Earl, you’ll keep within shouting distance of Jackson and me. We’re fanning out in the direction of the Seven Sisters. Got that, all of you? Now point out to me where you’re going. Jones?”
Atherton Jones, scarcely recognising himself by that name, pointed obediently. He looked again, incredulous. “Good God!” he said in alarm. Everyone turned to look.
Carla and Mimi screamed.
The others stared.
“Indians!” Mrs. Peel said faintly.
Over the hill came the Indians, riding in a tight group, wheeling in a circle, making for the high field that stood behind the ranch.
“On their way to the rodeo,” Sally explained quickly. “They are staying here for the night. Isn’t that right, Jim?”
“They usually do,” he said. He grinned. “It’s all right. They aren’t hostiles. Never killed a white man except in self-defence.”
“Well, I’m glad of that,” Atherton Jones said, so thankfully that he raised a smile all round the group. They were mounting now.
“And wigwams!” Carla said, suddenly noticing the white-winged, cross-poled tepees that were being erected in a small line under the shelter of the hill. Farther east, on the road from Snaggletooth, several cars were parked along the grass edge, and a straggling group of shawled women and small children were climbing up towards the camp.
“I think it might be a good idea to keep your mind on your horse, Carla,” Jim said.
“Of all nights for Esther to choose to get lost in!” Carla said, and then felt ashamed of herself. She paid attention to her horse.
“Got your holts?” Chuck asked, as he watched them sitting on horseback.
“And one last thing,” Jim said. “If you find her with any blood around, don’t, for God’s sake, try to get her on a horse. One of you stay and let the other ride back for help.” He turned his horse and rode off, with Jackson and Earl following him. The others chose their appointed directions.
“My God,” Karl said, under his breath. “I bet that stiffened all of them.”
Chuck said nothing, just looked at the horses.
“It stiffened me,” Sally said.
“Blood,” Mimi said. “You know, I hadn’t even thought of that. And the things we said today! We’ve all disliked her, you know. Even Prender.”
“Oh, shut up, Mimi,” Karl said. “Hell’s bells, what a mess...”
“Shut up yourself, Karl,” Mimi said.
He looked at the horses in the corral, then at the Indians on the hill. “Any connection?” he asked Chuck suddenly. I’m damned, Karl thought, if I’ll keep guard around the corral. Didn’t Jim Brent realise the Indians would notice the carefully corralled horses? Fine way to treat friends.
“Sure,” Chuck admitted frankly. “And we couldn’t pay them a bigger compliment. The Squeehawks say they can beat the Crows any day when it comes to being horse-fanciers.”
“Well, I’m not staying here to insult any Indian,” Karl said.
Chuck looked at him, pulled his hat farther down over his eyes. “Leaving your post, son?” he asked quietly, almost casually.
“That’s right,” Mimi said quickly. “You go and help Mrs. Gunn, and I’ll stay here in your place.”
“Argue it out with Jim,” Sally said. “But you better wait until he gets back before you go making your change in his plans.”
Karl said nothing. But he stayed. He’d argue it out with Brent.
Mimi was watching Jim in the distance. He was riding towards the Indians, who had travelled over the hill. Indians, she thought, Indians coming over the hill. I’ve never seen anything, imagined anything, like this. It’s a matter-of-fact thing to Chuck here, to Jim, to the boys. But I’ve never known anything like this. “And we’ll probably never be able to see them,” she said gloomily, thinking of Esther Park and a night of worry and trouble. Trust Esther to choose today...
“You’ll be hearing Injuns plenty,” Chuck said, as if he had been reading her thoughts. “After they set up their tepees and the women start cooking, and they eat, and they do a bit of talking, they’ll be singing and dancing half the night. They’re kind of slow to get started on it, but once they get going they keep it up. You’ll be hearing the
m plenty. But first we’ll find Miss Park.”
“Yes, Chuck,” Mimi said. And for penance she turned away from the blue-rimmed mountains and the golden hillside and the white-pinioned tepees, and she marched down towards Mrs. Gunn and a stack of dirty dishes, and fires to be lit, and sandwiches to be made.
“And what do we do?” Karl asked. “Just stand here counting the blasted horses every five minutes?”
“There’s worse things to look at nor a horse,” Chuck said amiably. Then, as Karl and Sally both stood silently beside him, he began to tell of the winter when he lived with the Squeehawks on their reservation which lay eighty-odd miles away to the south. They were good ranchers. Not like the Iropshaws, who rented out their land to others and spent too much on joy-water, when they could get it, and then never had a penny for their families. Now take the Squeehawks...
Karl listened, not altogether pleased with what he heard. Neither the prosperity of the Squeehawks nor the laziness of the Iropshaws fitted into his picture of Indians. Soon he stopped listening and just looked at the horses.
25
THE WAITING MAIDEN
Esther Park awoke from a deep, untroubled sleep. She felt good. The air was still warm, and she lay under the tree and looked up at the sky. Then she noticed it was less brilliant and the sun was farther away. It was after five o’clock by her watch. She rose, stretching herself stiffly. The horse was still swinging his long tail restlessly, tossing his head as much as the tight reins would let him. I’m thirsty, I’m thirsty and hungry, Esther Park thought. She walked down towards the little stream. It had a silly name, she remembered, but that was all she could remember about it. The water was shallow, flowing clearly over the small, rounded pebbles; it tasted cold, cold as if the snows were just melting.
As she knelt at the edge of its bank she heard a shout. It was Chuck’s voice. They had begun searching for her. About time, too, she thought angrily. Why, they should have found her hours ago. And she would have now been sitting in the living-room at Rest and be Thankful with everyone gathered around her. “We were so worried, Esther,” they were saying. “How did it happen? Tell us.” And she would begin to speak, describing how she had ridden far into the mountains. Coming back, the horse took fright—perhaps he smelt a bear—and she was thrown. Stunned. The horse came back to her, and stood beside her. She couldn’t rise. She lay there. She must have fainted. She didn’t remember much after that until she heard a faint shout in the distance, and she revived in time to cry out weakly in answer—just when they might have gone on and never found her.
She heard Chuck’s voice again, calling repeatedly. He was farther down the stream, hidden by the small wood. Well, she wouldn’t answer him. He was the one who made fun of her. No human being ever caught distemper, she had found out. Let him search, she thought. Then she wanted to laugh. “I could have called, but I didn’t,” she said aloud. “I didn’t.” Let them all search!
Then, after she was sure Chuck had gone, she walked up the sloping ground towards the tree where she had slept. She glanced at the horse to see if he were safe. He whinnied. She must remember to untie him before the search-party found her. She wished she had something to eat, something better to drink than water. It was cruel of them to keep her waiting like this. But they were all thoughtless and selfish, all of them. She sat down on the grass, her elbows resting on her knees, and she stared moodily ahead of her. She stared over the tops of the scattered pines and birches that grew down the slope of the stream’s little valley, at the thick wood beyond the stream, at the canyons beyond the wood. The sun’s rays were less bright now. The forests round the mountains were sombre and silent, the crags became a darker, colder grey as they fell into deepening shadows. She sat, quite motionless, staring at the miles of land in front of her, seeing nothing. If they don’t come by six o’clock, she thought, I’ll get on my horse and let him take me home. I’ll come slowly into the ranch, and they’ll see how near to complete exhaustion I am. And they’ll have to admit that I’ve courage. “How wonderful of you, Esther,” Carla would say, “to be able to ride home by yourself after what you went through! Did you see the bear?”
* * *
The two Indian boys, racing their horses ahead of the others as they crossed Far Hill and reached Flying Tail territory, saw Chuck in the distance near Laughing Creek. They reined in abruptly and sat watching him. But whether it was with interest or amusement no one could have told.
“Old-timer,” the smaller boy said, looking at Chuck’s hat. He tilted his own battered felt hat still more in the style of the younger cowboys.
His cousin nodded.
They kept motionless, sheltered by three stray trees and a clump of boulders. They watched Chuck turn round and ride away, back towards the ranch.
“Why was he calling?” the younger one asked.
His cousin sat listening, slouching on his horse, his body resting. His long legs dangling against the dark streaks of sweat on his horse’s flanks. Then, without a word, he kicked his horse and pointed its head towards Laughing Creek. The other boy followed him, racing his horse too up the sloping ground to the sparse pine-trees that grew on the miniature hill above the creek.
As they rode anyone behind them would have thought they were cowboys, for they wore blue jeans and tightly fitted shirts and high-heeled boots and battered old felt hats on their heads. The hats were shaped correctly, and they were proud of them. (Their fathers and grandfathers wore their broad-brimmed hats straight on their heads, with the high crowns undented and a feather stuck in the bands. That was old-fashioned, like the long, thin plaits of hair that fell below the high-crowned hats.) But as they dismounted near the crest of the small hill, and looked round to see how far behind were the rest of their families, they were no longer cowboys. For they had slipped off the bare backs of their horses with a quickness and supple grace that didn’t belong to a paleface.
“That was a horse,” the older boy said. He nodded. He had heard a faint whinny, brought to him on the wind which came in his direction, just after the old-timer had ridden away. He had been sure it was a horse. And now he heard a restless horse no more than thirty paces away, just beyond the trees over the small ridge.
“But why search for a horse by shouting?” the smaller boy asked.
They looked at each other, each seeing a reflection of his own face. The thick black hair fell over the broad, smooth brow in straight, heavy locks. The eyes slanted, wide apart above the broad cheekbones. The flat cheeks and the heavy, broad nose added to the width of the face above the mouth. But below the lips the whole face suddenly narrowed and sharpened into a pointed chin, long-jawed. The skin was brown. The fine eyes were almost black. The older boy suffered, like most boys of sixteen, from a skin eruption. The younger cousin had inherited his family’s perpetual cold.
At this moment they were serious, sensing a mystery and excitement. But if anyone had thought this normal he would have been as mistaken as he was in guessing that two young cowboys were riding in front of him. They had been joking, laughing, yelling, giggling, for the last fifteen miles. They had been scouts for Custer—the ones he hadn’t listened to; then a Squeehawk raiding party against a Sioux village; then cavalry charging the Germans whom their uncle, Bob Big-Foot-in-the-Shoe, had beaten. And just before they had seen Chuck they had been the two bravest leaders of the Light Brigade, which they had learned in Sixth Grade English last year. Now, at this moment, they were just Cedric Slow-to-Move and Harold Running-Nose, curious, alert, eager to solve the problem that their instinct had warned them about.
Cedric, because he was six months older and half an inch taller than Harold, led the way. They tethered their horses securely and crept forward silently to the crest of the hill, taking shelter behind a clump of trees. In the open ground that sloped away in front of them a woman sat under a solitary tree. That was nothing remarkable. The Indians had always called this little hidden slope with the magnificent view the Waiting Maiden, just as the canyons ahead
were called the Seven Sisters. It was appropriate that a woman should sit here and look into space. Cedric’s great-grandfather told a story that lasted three nights about just such a woman in this very place.
“Aw, nuts,” whispered Harold, in his best Sixth Grade English.
“She didn’t neigh,” Cedric whispered back, his keen eyes searching the rest of the glade and finding the horse. He smiled.
“She could, I bet,” Harold said, looking at her closely. Then he saw the horse, and he smiled too. It was standing very still, its head high: it had sensed them. The horse has more brains than she has, he thought. He looked at Cedric, but Cedric was standing as still as the horse.
“I’ll give my bear’s roar,” Harold whispered, and he began to laugh silently. He slid on to the grass, holding his ribs, and rolled about as he enjoyed his joke. He could see it all—the bear that roared, the woman in flight, the horse that wouldn’t move because it knew what was a bear and what wasn’t. Then Harold stopped laughing, exhausted and happy, and lay watching Cedric with interest. Cedric had another idea. Horses always gave Cedric ideas.
“I bet my two-bladed knife to your new belt buckle that she would never know,” Cedric said softly. He was talking in Squeehawk now, dropping into the old language as he dropped into the old challenge.
Harold measured the distance from the group of trees to the single pine where the horse was tethered. He fingered the new silver buckle which his father, John Running-Nose, had given him only last week for killing his first bison in this year’s Big Hunt. Then he nodded his agreement. The distance was too great.
His critical eyes watched Cedric Slow-to-Move, who, after handing over the boots which he didn’t like but wanted to wear, had begun a side approach under cover of the fringe of trees, until he halted at the group of pines nearest the horse. Then he rose to his feet, stood there, letting the horse see him, smell him. He had reached it now, coming to the horse face-on, slowly, calmly. He stroked its nose and talked softly into its ear as his right hand slipped up to the knotted reins. Harold Running-Nose had to smile, even if he did lose his silver belt buckle, even if he did get a beating from his mother that would take the skin off his back.