It was tricky and sly, ruthless and resourceful. It dropped pebbles and earth-clods on us. It eddied in the depression and created whirlpools which snatched at us lustfully. And once there was a thud overhead and a crumbling of the bank—and a large tree rolled down upon us, the butt of the trunk missing Kachina by a hand's-breadth. But this last attack was really a blessing in disguise, for presently the rain came, and when the wind let up we were able to prop the tree against the bank, and it furnished some slight shelter, stripped though it was of leaves.
The rain was almost more terrible than the wind. For a while, indeed, the wind continued undiminished, lashing us with slanting columns of water that struck like liquid lances, the drops spurting up half a man's stature from the ground after the impact. Then, as the wind dropped, the rain came down perpendicularly, whipping our naked bodies with icy rods. A chill permeated the air. We were so cold that our teeth chattered. And the cold and the rain and the darkness continued, hour after hour.
How long it lasted I do not know, but I remember noting the lessening of the downpour, its swishing away in the East and the frosty twinkling of the stars. We were all too exhausted to think of anything except rest and we cowered beneath the tree-trunk, huddling close for warmth, and somehow slept. When we awoke the sun was rising, and the air was fresh and clear. The sky was cloudless and a soft blue. But all around us was strewn the wreckage of the storm.
The bodies of the man and horse the lightning-flash had revealed in the night still lay in two heaps of broken bones and pounded flesh. Three other horses, battered beyond recognition, were scattered along the bank of the shallow ravine or river-bed. Peering over the top of the bank we discovered that broad patches of the prairie had been denuded of grass, the underlying earth gouged up as though with a plough. The grove in which we had hidden was hacked and torn, an open swath cut through it, many trees down, all more or less mutilated.
Of the Tonkawas there was not a trace. Whatever casualties they had endured, plainly they had fled from so unlucky a spot; and that they had suffered by the storm we were convinced by ascertaining that the dead man the wind had blown into our hiding-place wore the hide cuirass which distinguished these raiders. Probably they had continued upon their way south as soon as the rain abated sufficiently.
Our horses had vanished with equal completeness. The rain had washed out hoof-prints, and we had no means of tracking them. And I have often reflected upon the oddity of circumstance in twice throwing the spotted stallion in my path, only to separate us without warning after he had fulfilled his mission. I hope that Sunkawakan-kedeshka and his mares escaped the storm, and that he lived out his life, free and untamed, leading his herd upon the prairies. But I do not know. Destiny had its use for him. He served his dumb turn—and passed on.
Yet I like to think—and it may be I have imbibed somewhat of the red man's pagan philosophy from over-much dwelling in his society—that in this shadowy after-world of spirits, in which both red man and white profess belief, man shall find awaiting him the brave beasts that loved him on earth. There I may ride through the fields of asphodels, gripping between my knees the spirit-form of that which was Sunkawakan-kedeshka, feeling again the throb and strain of willing muscles, curbing the patient, tireless energy as I used to, watching the velvet ear that ever switched back for a kind word or drooped at a rebuke. But I dream—as old men must.
Consider now our plight. We who had been lately so harried by fate were once more exposed to its whimsies. But recently prisoners, next free but weaponless, we were today at liberty and armed, but the horses upon which we had relied to expedite our passage of the plains were gone. Also, we required food for we had not eaten since noon of the day previous. Our nakedness I do not emphasize because Tawannears was an Indian and accustomed to it, and Peter and I had been habituated to it by years of exposure. For Kachina we had saved enough clothing to cover her, although she resented the distinction, and was as ready to bear her share of hardship as any of us.
Our food problem was solved temporarily by Peter, who insisted, and proved to our satisfaction that the flesh of the horses killed by the storm was still perfectly good. We ate it without avidity, tough, stringy meat, and sodden with moisture, but it sustained us for new efforts.
Having unburied our cache of weapons, we examined them carefully and were able to equip ourselves anew, Peter carrying the two extra quivers of arrows at his own insistence. The two hide cuirasses, cumbrous garments of the thick neck-hide of the buffalo slowly dried by fire, we discarded as being too hot and confining and stinking of their former wearers. We likewise threw into the bed of the rivulet those knives and tomahawks for which we had no use, retaining four of each, of very fine Spanish steel, which the Tonkawas must have traded or ravaged from the Apache or other Southern tribes.