IN THE VALLEY OF THE ARICKAREE
A blush as of roses
Where rose never grew!
Great drops on the bunch grass.
But not of the dew!
A taint in the sweet air
For wild bees to shun!
A stain that shall never
Bleach out in the sun!
—WHITTIER.
Stillwell was right. Sharp Grover knew, as well as the boy knew, that we were trapped, that before us now were the awful chances of unequal Plains warfare. A mere handful of us had been hurrying after a host, whose numbers the broad beaten road told us was legion. There was no mirth in that little camp that night in mid-September, and I thought of other things besides my strange vision at the gorge. The camp was the only mark of human habitation in all that wide and utterly desolate land. For days we had noted even the absence of all game—strong evidence that a host had driven it away before us. Everywhere, save about that winking camp fire was silence. The sunset was gorgeous, in the barbaric sublimity of its seas of gold and crimson atmosphere. And then came the rich coloring of that purple twilight. It is no wonder they call it regal. Out on the Plains that night it swathed the landscape with a rarer hue than I have ever seen anywhere else, although I have watched the sun go down into the Atlantic off the Rockport coast, and have seen it lost over the edge of the West Prairie beyond the big cottonwood above the farther draw. As I watched the evening shadows deepen, I remembered what Morton had told me in the little cabin back in the Saline country, "Who ever fights the Indians must make his will before the battle begins." Now that I was face to face with the real issue, life became very sweet to me. How grand over war and hate were the thoughts of peace and love! And yet every foot of this beautiful land must be bought with a price. No matter where the great blame lies, nor who sinned first in getting formal possession, the real occupation is won only by sacrifice. And I was confronted with my part of the offering. Strange thoughts come in such an hour. Sitting there in the twilight, I asked myself why I should want to live; and I realized how strong, after all, was the tie that bound me to Springvale; how under all my pretence of beginning a new life I had not really faced the future separated from the girl I loved. And then I remembered that it would mean nothing serious to her how this campaign ended. Oh! I was in the crucible now. I must prove myself the thing I always meant to be. God knew the heroic spirit I needed that lonely September night. As I sat looking out toward the west the years of my boyhood came back to me, and then I remembered O'mie's words when he told me of his struggle:
"It was to save a woman, Phil. He could only kill me. He wouldn't have been that good to her. You'd have done the same to save any woman, aven a stranger to you. Wait an' see."
I thought of the two women in the Solomon Valley, whom Black Kettle's band had dragged from their homes, tortured inhumanly, and at last staked out hand and foot on the prairie to die in agony under pitiless skies.
"When the day av choosin' comes," O'mie said, "we can't do no more 'n to take our places. We all do it. When you git face to face with a thing like that, somehow the everlastin' arms Dr. Hemingway preaches about is strong underneath you."
Oh, blessed O'mie! Had he told me that to give me courage in my hour of shrinking? Wherever he was to-night I knew his heart was with me, who so little deserved the love he gave me. At last I rolled myself snugly in my blanket, for the September evenings are cold in Colorado. The simple prayers of childhood came back to me, and I repeated the "Now I lay me" I used to say every night at Aunt Candace's knee. It had a wonderful meaning to me to-night. And once more I thought of O'mie and how his thin hand gripped mine when he said: "Most av all, don't niver forgit it, Phil, when the thing comes to you, aven in your strength. Most av all, above all sufferin', and natural longin' to live, there comes the reality av them words Aunt Candace taught us: 'Though I walk through the valley av the shadow av death, I will fear no evil.'"
"It may be that's the Arickaree Valley for me," I said to myself. "If it is, I will fear no evil." And I stretched out on the brown grasses and fell asleep.
About midnight I wakened suddenly. A light was gleaming near. Some one stood beside me, and presently I saw Colonel Forsyth looking down into my face with kindly eyes. I raised myself on my elbow and watched him passing among the slumbering soldiers. Even now I can see Jack Stillwell's fair girl-face with the dim light on it as he slept beside me. What a picture that face would make if my pen were an artist's brush! At three in the morning I wakened again. It was very dark, but I knew some one was near me, and I judged instinctively it was Forsyth. It was sixty hours before I slept again.
For five days every movement of ours had been watched by Indian scouts. Night and day they had hung on our borders, just out of sight, waiting their time to strike. Had we made a full march on that sixteenth day of September, instead of halting to rest and graze our horses, we should have gone, as Stillwell predicted, straight into Hell's jaws. As it was, Hell rose up and crept stealthily toward us. For while our little band slept, and while our commander passed restlessly among us on that night, the redskins moved upon our borders.