Under him he felt the wetness of melting snow; his rump and thighs itched in wet leather. If he had to march day after day in deep snowpaths and eat only this thin slop he would need sleep, but how could a man sleep with melting snow under and over him? Before morning he would be chilled through. One thing was now plain to him: when a man faced torture and death he was forced to do some thinking. Looking up through the lovely swirling flakes, he told himself that if the Creator was all-mighty there was justice in the world; and if that were so, there would be justice here, for him. He suspected that this was a childish thought but it comforted him. It comforted him to reach emotionally across the wintry desolation to the shack where Kate sat, talking to her children, with the snow falling white on her gray hair. While thinking of her, alone and half frozen and facing a bitter winter, there came a flash of recognition that made him pause in his breathing: in this war party were some of the braves who had slaughtered her family. The brute who had jerked the rope was one of them. They knew they had in their power the man who had set the four Blackfeet heads on the stakes. What a struggle must be convulsing their wild savage souls, as they wavered between avarice and blood lust! How they would have loved to drink the whiteman’s firewater, while with insane shrieks they hacked his flesh off in little gobbets and filled his wounds with the big red ants!
Having now, it seemed to him, seen his plight in clear terms, Sam faced the question whether greed or blood lust would win. He saw now all the more reason why his escape, if he were to make one, should be as early as possible. It would be fatal for him if they took him to one of the larger villages, because there the squaws would tear the floor out of hell and blood lust would win. He studied the guard before him, praying that the villain would fall asleep. This hope was dashed when about two in the morning two fresh guards came to relieve him. The crafty chief was taking no chances.
Of the two savages who now sat and faced him Sam could have said only that they had black hair and eyes. Each had a rifle across his lap, a knife at his waist. Sam knew there could be no escape this night. In two hours other guards would relieve these two, and at the first gray of daylight he would march again. He probably would have to walk from daylight till dark, with no more than a cup or two of stinking soup to nourish him. The only thing to do was to try to sleep.
He pushed his legs out and lay back, his face turned to the goldenbark of a yellow pine tree. He closed his eyes. Even if he could not sleep with snow melting under and over him he could relax and doze and that would be good. He thought an hour had passed when he felt a presence close to him. He smelled it. He smelled an Indian strong with the Blackfeet odor but he did not open his eyes and stare, as a greenhorn would have done. If a savage had come over, eager to thrust a knife into him, he would need in his black heart only the most trivial excuse. He could say, to his chief that the paleface had opened his eyes and leapt at him, and in self-defense he had struck. Telling himself as a warning that the redman was emotional, high-strung, impulsive, Sam allowed nothing in his face and posture to change, as a guard, drawn knife in hand, bent over him and studied his face. In his mind Sam had the picture. He could have leapt with his incredible speed and even with bound hands he could have broken the man’s neck, but that would only have brought on slow torture and death. There was nothing to do but pretend to sleep and trust in a Being whose first law was justice ....
Sam would have said that the redskin bent over him for at least five minutes. Then the rancid odor went away. But even then Sam did not open his eyes or stir. The snow had been melting on his eyelids and face, and his eyes and face were wet. About four o’clock he actually sank into sleep, and slept until he heard the first movements at daylight. Chilled through and half frozen, he struggled to his feet and tried to shake moisture from his leather clothing. It was plain to him now that if he were going to make an effort to escape it would have to be in the next twenty-four hours.
He sank to the snow by the tree and waited.
23
HIS BREAKFAST was another cup of soup. He thought the scraps of meat in it were dog or owl or crow. Today, as yesterday, the redmen were all mounted, with the chief on Sam’s bay. Again Sam had to walk. This day and this night were like the former day and night. He had no chance to escape. His wily captors put the rope twice around the leather that bound his wrists, and both ends around the tree and over to the guards. His second night was ten miserable chilled hours under storm and guards.
The third day and night repeated the first and second, and Sam knew that after two or three more days like these he would be too weak to escape, or to want to. He would make a move, even if it was desperate and useless. After camp was pitched the chief came to Sam where he was tied to a fir tree and looked into his eyes. The redskin had on fresh war paint and more rancid grease on his hair; nothing about him looked human, not even his eyes, for in his hideous face his eyes could have been those of a beast. There was in them no trace of the human or the civilized—they were the hard glittering eyes of an animal looking at its prey. Sam thought the falcon must look like that when it moved to dive and strike.
He had not expected the Indian to hit him, and when, with startling swiftness, the blow fell across his cheek, Sam’s eyes opened wide with astonishment. Then he looked steadily at the creature before him, telling himself that if he escaped he would never rest until he had tracked this coward down. He again made note of the man’s shape, height, weight, the length of his hair, the scars, and the exact appearance of his teeth when his lips parted to snarl. Sam had no notion of why the fool had come over to strike him; years ago he had given up trying to understand the Indian male. Some infernal evil was busy in this man’s mind and heart.
The chief turned to shout and there hastened over a brave who, like his boss, smelled of rancid grease and redbank war paint. The chief spoke to the brave as he came up, and at once this man stepped so close to Sam that his face was only fourteen inches from Sam’s face. He looked into Sam’s eyes and made an ugly sound. Sam knew it was an expression of contempt. The warrior then said, "Brave, uggh!" and again hawked the contempt up. Sam was startled; he had not known that any man in this party spoke English. "Yuh brave?" the redskin asked, and turned to spit a part of his contempt. Sam stared at the fellow, wondering if he was a half-breed. With signs and broken English the warrior told Sam that for the chief he was a coward and a sick old dog. He was an old coyote covered over with scabs and wood ticks. When the chief slapped him he had challenged him to a tight, but here the paleface stood, cowering and trembling. Were there any brave men among the palefaces?
Sam was silent. He knew that this was an Indian trick but he didn’t know the reason for it. It was a preposterous lie to say that the chief would fight him, with fists, knives, or guns, or with any weapon. It was a trick. Was it some plan to cripple him, so that he could not possibly escape—to hamstring him or blind him? Sam looked up into the storm and waited for what was to come.
In his crippled English the warrior was now telling Sam that they were going to ransom him to the Crows. What the Crows would do to him he tried to suggest by stripping fir needles and pretending that they were gobbets of flesh, and by pretending with a linger to slice his nose, lips, tongue, genitals, until they were all gone. He indicated that the joints of lingers and toes would be broken, one by one; with a piece of hooked wire each eye would be pulled out of its socket; and with a string tied around each eyeball he would be led through the village, while the squaws sliced off his buttocks and tossed them to the dogs. What purpose the creature had in mind with his catalogue of horrors Sam did not know. All the while the redskin talked and gestured, with glittering of his black eyes and guttural gloatings of joy, Sam’s mind was busy. He now suspected that this band of warriors had been begging the chief to turn the prisoner over to them, and their share of the rum, so that they could torture and drink and celebrate. The animal before him had worked himself into such a frenzy of maiming and blood-letting that Sam was afraid the frenzy might prove contagious. He decided to speak. He would not speak as a normal man or in a normal voice. He would speak as The Terror, as the man of all mountain men most feared by the red people, and as a great leader and chief.