Part 8 (1/2)

Putting the boy down on a robe behind a rock, and standing naked in the frosty air he made his magazine gun blaze until empty; then picking the boy up ran on higher up the rocks until he was on the table land of the top of the canon. Here he resumed his shooting, but the darkness and distance made it difficult to see. The noise of the fight clattered and clanged up from the depths to him and echoed down from above where the charge had gone. Other Indians joined him and they poured their bullets into the pony-soldiers. The Bad G.o.ds had whispered to the Yellow-Eyes; they had made them see under the snow. The Chis-chis-chash were dead men, but they would take many with them to the spirit-land. The Fire Eater felt but a few cartridges in his belt and knew that he must use them sparingly. The little boy sat crying on the buffalo robe. Holding his smoking rifle in one hand, he pa.s.sed the other over his scalp-lock.

The bat-skin medicine was not there. For the first time since the Good G.o.ds had given it to him, back in his youth, did he find himself without it. A nameless terror overcame him. He was a truly naked man in the snow, divested of the protection of body and soul.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 14 He made his magazine gun blaze until empty]

He meditated long before he reached down and gathered up his offspring.

Carefully wrapping up the wailing infant, he handed it to a squaw who stood near s.h.i.+vering and moaning wildly. ”Stay here and hold my boy. I am going back.”

Shoving cartridges into his magazine, he made his way down, the light snow flying before him. Rounding the rocks he could see down into the main canon; see the pony-soldiers and their Indian allies tearing down and burning the lodges. The yellow glare of many fires burned brightly in contrast with the cold blue of the snow. He scanned narrowly the place where his own lodge had been and saw it fall before many hands to be taken to their fires. With raised shoulders and staring eyes he stood aghast. He drunk in the desecration in all its awful significance. The bat's skin--the hand of the Good G.o.ds--was removed from him; his shadow was as naked as his back.

In the snow a hundred yards below him lay his young squaw, the mother of his boy, and she had not moved since she lay down.

As the pony-soldiers finally saw the stark figure of the Indian among the rocks they sent a shower of bullets around him. He had no medicine; the Bad G.o.ds would direct the bullets to his breast. He turned and ran frantically away.

The last green-gra.s.s had seen the beplumed chief with reddened battle-ax leading a hundred swift warriors over the dying pony-soldiers, but now the cold, blue snow looked on a naked man running before bullets, with his medicine somewhere in the black smoke which began to hang like a pall over the happy winter camp of the bravest Indians. The ebb and flow of time had fattened and thinned the circ.u.mstances of the Fire Eater's life many times, but it had never taken his all before. It had left him nothing but his boy and a nearly empty gun. It had placed him between the fire of the soldiers' rifles and the cruel mountain winds which would pinch his heart out.

With his boy at his breast he flew along the rim-rock like a crow, hunting for shelter from bullets and wind. He longed to expend his remaining cartridges where each would put out a white man's fire.

Meanwhile, recovering from their surprise, the Indians had gathered thickly on the heights and fought stiffly back. Being unable to follow them, the pony-soldiers drew back, but as they retreated they left the village blazing, which the Chis-chis-chash could not prevent. Their rifles had only handed them over to the hungry winter.

The Fire Eater sat m.u.f.fled on a ledge, firing from time to time, and anxiously scanning his shots. The cold made him shake and he could not hold his rifle true. His old, thin blood crept slowly through his veins, and the child cried piteously. His fires were burning low; even the stimulus of hate no longer stirred him as he looked down on the white men who had burned his all and shot his wife and were even then spattering his den in the rocks with lead. He gave up, overpowered by the situation. With infinite difficulty he gathered himself erect on his stiffened joints and took again his burden in his trembling arms.

Standing thus on the wind-swept height, with the bullets spotting the rocks around him, he extended his right hand and besought the black, eddying smoke to give him back his bat-skin; he begged the spirits of the air to bring it to him. He shouted his harsh pathos at a wild and lonely wind, but there was no response.