HE DROVE THE WAGON INTO THE YARD BEHIND Olsen's Livery Stable. Then he got down and walked across to the house that stood next to it. He climbed up the back steps and knocked at the door.
"Mister Olsen," he called out.
A shadow darkened the light of the window. The door opened and Olsen stood there. "Max!" he said. "What you doin' back here?"
Max stared up into Olsen's face. "They killed my ma and pa," he said.
"Killed?" Olsen exclaimed in surprise. '"Who killed?"
Attracted by the sound of her husband's voice, Mrs. Olsen appeared in the doorway behind him.
"The three men," Max said. "They asked me an' I gave them the directions to my house. An' they killed 'em." He hesitated a moment and his voice almost broke. "An' they stole Pa's hoss an' took his rifle an' pistol, too."
Mrs. Olsen saw into the shock that lay behind the boy's facade of calm. She pushed her husband out of the way and reached out to Max. "You come inside an' let me fix you somethin' hot to drink," she said.
He looked into her eyes. "They ain't time, ma'am," he said. "I got to be gettin' after them." He turned to Olsen. "I got the mules an' the wagon an' four sheep an' sixteen chickens outside in the yard. Would you give me a hundred dollars an' the pinto for 'em?"
Olsen nodded. "Why, sure, boy," he said. The mules and the wagon alone were worth three times that. "I’ll even give you the big bay if you want. He's a better hoss. An' I'll throw in a saddle, too."
Max shook his head. "No, thank you, Mr. Olsen. I want a pony I can ride without a saddle an' one that's used to the plains. He won't have as much to tote an' I'll move faster that way."
"All right, if that's the way you want it."
"Can I have the money now?" Max asked.
"Sure, boy," Olsen answered. He turned back into the room.
Mrs. Olsen's voice stopped him. "Oh, no, you're not," she said. She drew Max into the house firmly. "First, he's goin' to eat something. Then he's goin' to sleep. Time enough in the morning for him to start."
"But they'll be further away by then," Max protested.
"No they won't," she said with woman's logic. "They got to stop to sleep, too. They won't be any further ahead of you then than they are right now."
She closed the door behind him and led him over to the table. She pushed him into a chair and placed a plate of soup in front of him. Automatically he began to eat.
"I’ll go outside an' unhitch the team," Mr. Olsen said.
When he came back into the house, Max was sleeping, his head resting in his crossed arms on the table.
Mrs. Olsen gestured her husband to silence. "You just can't let him go after those men by himself," she whispered.
"I got to go, ma'am." Max's voice came over her shoulder.
She turned around and looked at him. "You can't," she cried out. "They're grown men an' they'll hurt you. Why, you're just a boy!"
He looked up into her face and she was aware for the first time of the pride that glowed deep in those dark-blue eyes. "They hurt me all they're goin' to, ma'am," he said. "I'm 'bout sixteen, an' with my mother's people, a boy ain't a boy no more once he's sixteen. He's a man."
On his second day out of Dodge, he slowed his pinto to a walk and studied the side of the road carefully. After a few minutes, he stopped and dismounted. He looked along the edge of the road carefully.
The four horses had stopped here. They had milled around for a little while and then two of them had gone back onto the road toward Virginia City. The other two had gone eastward across the plains.
He remounted and rode along the plains, his eyes searching out the trail until he found what he was looking for. One of the horses had been his father's. He recognized the shoe marking in the soft earth. It was lighter than the other marking, which meant he was not being ridden, but led. It also meant that the man up ahead must have been the leader, otherwise they wouldn't have let him take the horse, which was the most valuable thing they had stolen.
A few miles farther along the trail, he saw some horse droppings. He stopped his horse and jumped down. He kicked at the dung with his foot. It was not more than seven hours old. They had wasted more time along the trail than he'd thought they would. He got back on the pinto and pushed on.
He rode most of that night, following the trail in the bright moonlight. By the evening of the next day, he was less than an hour behind his quarry.
He looked up at the sky. It was about seven o'clock and would be dark soon. The man would be stopping to make camp if he hadn't already. Max got off his horse and waited for night to fall.
While he sat there, he cut a forked branch from a scrub tree and fitted a round stone onto it. Then he bound the stone to the crotch with thin strips of leather, winding them down the branch to make a handle. When he was finished, he had a war club as good as any he'd learned to make the summer he spent with the Kiowa.
It was dark then and he got to his feet, fastening the club to his belt. He took the horse by the halter and started forward cautiously on foot.
He walked slowly, his ears alert for any strange sound, his nostrils sniffing at the breeze for the scent of a campfire.
He was in luck, for he caught the scent of the campfire from about a quarter mile away. He tied the pinto to a bush and pulled the rifle from the pack on the horse's back. Silently he moved forward.
The whinny of a horse came to his ears and he dropped to the ground and peered forward. He figured the horses were tied about three hundred yards ahead of him. He looked for the campfire but couldn't find it.
Cautiously he made his way downwind from the horses in a wide circle. The smell of the campfire was strong in his nostrils now. He raised his head from the tall plain grass. The campfire was about two hundred yards in front of him. He could see the man, sitting hunched over it, eating from a frying pan. The man was no fool. He had picked a camp site between two rocks. That way, he could be approached only from in front.
Max sank back into the grass. He would have to wait until the man was asleep. He stretched out and looked up at the sky. When the moon was up, a few hours from now, it would be time for him to move. Until then, it would do no harm for him to rest. He closed his eyes. In a moment, he was sleeping soundly.
His eyes opened suddenly and he stared straight up at the moon. It hung white and high in the sky over him. He sat up slowly and peered over the grass.
The campfire was glowing faintly now, dying slowly. He could see the shadow of the man lying near the rocks. He started to inch forward. The man snored lightly and turned in his sleep. Max froze for a moment, then the figure was still again and Max inched forward a little farther. He could see the man's outstretched hand, a gun at the tip of the fingers.
He crawled around behind and picked up a small pebble from the ground beside him. Silently he took the war club from his belt and got up into a half crouch. Holding his breath in tightly, he threw the stone near the man's feet.
With a muttered curse, he sat up, looking forward, his gun in his hand. He never knew what hit him as Max brought the war club down on his head from behind.
Max came back with the pinto about the time that dawn was breaking in the east. He tied his horse to the scrub near the others and walked back to look at the man.
His eyes were still closed. He was breathing evenly though there was a smear of blood along his cheek and ear where the club had caught him. He lay naked on his back on the ground, his arms and legs outstretched tautly, staked to the ground.
Max sat down on the rock and began to whet his knife along its smooth surface. When the sun came up, the man opened his eyes. They were dull at first, then gradually they began to clear. He tried to sit up and became aware that he was tied down. He twisted his head and looked at Max.
"What's the idee?" he asked.
Max stared at him. He didn't stop whetting his knife. "I’m Max Sand," he said. "Remember me?"
Max walked over to him. He stood there looking down, the knife held loosely in his hand. There was a sick feeling inside him as he looked at the man and pictured what must have happened in the cabin. The image chased the feeling from him. When he spoke, his voice was calm and emotionless. "Why did you kill my folks?"
"I didn't do nothing to them," the man said, his eyes watching the knife.
"You got my pa's hoss out there."
"He sol' it to me," the man replied.
"Pa wouldn' sell the on'y hoss he had," Max said.
"Let me up outa here," the man screamed suddenly.
Max held the knife to the man's throat. "You want to tell me what happened?"
"The others did it!" the man screamed. "I had nothin' to do with it. They wanted the gold!" His eyes bugged out hysterically. In his fear, he began to urinate, the water trickling down his bare legs. "Le' me go, you crazy Injun bastard!" he screamed.
Max moved swiftly now. All the hesitation that he had felt was gone. He was the son of Red Beard and Kaneha and inside him was the terrible vengeance of the Indian. His knife flashed bright in the morning sun and when he straightened up the man was silent.
Max looked down impassively. The man had only fainted, even though his eyes stared upward, open and unseeing. His eyelids had been slit so they could never again be closed and the flesh hung like strips of ribbon down his body from his shoulders to his thighs.
Max turned and walked until he found an anthill. He scooped the top of it up in his hands and went back to the man. Carefully he set it down on the man's pubis. In a moment, the tiny red ants were everywhere on the man. They ran into all the blood-sweetened crevices of his body, up across his eyes and into his open mouth and nostrils.
The man began to cough and moan. His body stirred. Silently Max watched him. This was the Indian punishment for a thief, rapist and murderer.
It took the man three days to die. Three days of the blazing sun burning into his open eyes and blistering his torn flesh while the ants industriously foraged his body. Three days of screaming for water and three nights of agony as insects and mosquitoes, drawn by the scent of blood, came to feast upon him.
At the end, he was out of his mind, and on the fourth morning, when Max came down to look at him, he was dead. Max stared at him for a moment, then took out his knife and lifted his scalp.
He went back to the horses and mounted his pinto. Leading the other two animals, he turned and rode north toward the land of the Kiowa.
The old chief, his grandfather, came out of his tepee to watch him as he dismounted. He waited silently until Max came up to him.
Max looked into the eyes of the old man. "I come in sadness to the tents of my people," he said in Kiowa.
The chief did not speak.
"My father and mother are dead," he continued.
The chief still did not speak.
Max reached to his belt and took off the scalp that hung there. He threw it down in front of the chief. "I have taken the scalp of one of the murderers," he said. "And I come to the tent of my grandfather, the mighty chief, to spend the time of my sorrow."
The chief looked down at the scalp, then up at Max. "We are no longer free to roam the plains," he said. "We live on the land that the White Eyes allow us. Have any of them seen you as you approached?"
"None saw me," Max answered. "I came from the hills behind them."
The chief looked down at the scalp again. It had been a long time since the scalp of an enemy hung from the post before his tepee. His heart swelled with pride. He looked at Max. The White Eyes could imprison the bodies but they could not imprison the spirit. He picked up the scalp and hung it from the post then turned back to Max.
"A tree has many branches," he said slowly. "And when some branches fall or are cut down, other branches must be grown to take their place so their spirits may find where to live."
He took a feather from his headdress and held it toward Max. "There is a maiden whose brave was killed in a fall from his horse two suns ago. She had already taken the marriage stick and now must live alone in a tent by the river until his spirit is replaced in her. Go now and take her."
Max stared at him. "Now?" he asked.
The chief thrust the feather into his hand. "Now," he said, with the knowledge of all his years. "It is the best time, while the spirit of war and vengeance still rages like a torrent in your blood. It is the best time to take a woman."
Max turned and picked up the lead and walked down through the camp with the horses. The Indians watched him silently as he passed by. He walked slowly with his head held high. He reached the bank of the small river and followed it around a bend.
A single tent stood there, out of sight of the rest of the camp. Max walked toward it. He tied the horses to some shrubs and lifted the flap of the tent and walked in.
The tent was empty. He lifted the flap again and looked out. There was no one in sight. He let the flap down. He walked to the back of the tent and sat down on a bed of skins stretched out on the floor.
A moment later the girl came in. Her hair and body were wet from the river and her dress clung to her. Her eyes went wide as she saw him. She stood there poised for flight.
She wasn't much more than a child, Max saw. Fourteen, maybe fifteen at the most. Suddenly he knew why the chief had sent him down here. He picked up the feather and held it toward her. "Don't be afraid," he said gently. "The mighty chief has put us together so that we may drive the devils from each other."